Artist's Comments

I love those charmed moments when a photo is able to capture the beauty of our world and bring it back for others to enjoy or be inspired by.  A moment when the light is perfect and the shutter clicks just as the composition falls into place.  I generally focus on details of the scene rather than grand landscapes, and often capture man’s works as well as nature’s.  After all, we humans are an integral part of nature and our craftsmanship can be just as beautiful.  Sometimes a bit of whimsy creeps in too.

Photography has been a passion since I started doing black and white darkroom work as a teenager in a spare room, trying to make my images look like Ansel Adam’s after taking them from “above his tripod holes”.  Later I was inspired by the great color nature photographers.  I had the opportunity to take classes from several; however most of my learning has been by reading and making lots of pictures.

My territory is the US and Canadian West, with special attention to places that are off the main roads or accessible only by boat along the Inside Passage.  I am also building a library of images close to home near Seattle.

Our eyes see far more than any camera or print can reproduce.  We can concentrate on a part of the scene while staying aware of the totality, then instantly shift our focus.  The eye can handle wide ranges of light and dark in one glance.  A human standing just inside a mesa cliff house will see both the dim interior and the sunlit landscape outside, while the camera can only capture one or the other.  The photographer’s art is to first realize there is a picture at all, next to pick the right image frame that tells the story, and then technically turn the bits and dyes into a print that conveys the same experience as the human eye enjoyed.

My professional career has been in computers from the early sixties when machines that filled rooms were not as smart as today’s cell phone -- an adventure to participate in.  As photography has gone digital I have found my career in computers has converged with my art’s techniques.  I personally use the latest tools to communicate well, as Adams would have done, rather than digitally morph images to something new and unreal.  Both are art, just different.

I have lived most of my life in California, moving to Seattle in 1998.  My wife Jan, two cats and Popcorn the Corgi now happily call Edmonds Washington home.  Besides software and photography, I enjoy teaching boating classes for the Seattle Sail and Power Squadron.

Bill Ray

 

 

Bill, Jan and Popcorn on our trawler Bedoeling