When I was eight-years-old I saw an image slowly appear on a piece of photo print paper in a tray filled with a clear liquid. I was instantly hooked. I immediately started doing odd jobs in my neighborhood to earn the money I would need to convert the “fruit cellar” in the basement of my home to a darkroom. From then on I always had a camera with me. My father, a dentist, was drafted by the U.S. Army when I was 12-years-old. We moved to France for twenty-months. While there I taught photography to G.I.s in the Service Club. I “went pro” – meaning getting paid for my time and resulting prints – when I was 14. I was the official photographer for my high school. When I graduated, not wanting to go to college yet, I joined the United States Air Force for four years. I made good use of the darkrooms that were available to me. In 1968 I opened an audio store in Chico and in 1973 added a full-service photography business next to it. I did a LOT of fashion work for coeds hoping to get modeling jobs, usually for catalogs. And a lot of product photography. I took every photography course offered at Chico State University. I have a degree that includes photography and a college-level teaching credential in the area of photography.

Unlike most photographers, I do not have a list of people who influenced me artistically. There is only one: Yousuf Karsh, the best, and best-known, celebrity photographer of the 20th century. He was (1908-2002), truly, a master of the art of portraiture. Most of the images that you associate with people such as Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, President John F. Kennedy, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Mother Teresa were taken by him. He was an amazing person, very gentle and always took the time with a subject necessary to get them relaxed so he could capture a moment when they most looked like... well...themselves. In August of 1977 I had the great pleasure of visiting him in his studio in Ottawa, Canada. He was exceptionally gracious and was kind enough to show me some of the techniques that he used to create the images that are unmistakably imprinted with his artistic signature. Whenever I take a portrait I think of him looking over my shoulder, guiding me. I invite you visit the Website that features his work: http://www.karsh.org

In 1979 I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend law school. I spent many years variously in the legal profession and the micro-computer industry. Both were intellectually challenging and rewarding but neither was creative at the level I enjoy indulging myself. So I "retired" much earlier than most people are able and am again regularly enjoying my first love: creating beautiful images of people, places, and things and capturing the excitement of live music performances and community theater.

The quality of my work is exceptionally good because of the extra time I spend with my subjects and the care I give to the technical elements of the creative process. I view the process as highly-collaborative. That includes stopping every ten exposures or so to look at the results, with the subject, on a calibrated, 21-inch, monitor. Then we will decide what to do next: change the background; the lighting; make-up; perhaps clothing. And, of course, the pose.

I am MUCH more interested in creating perfect images than the time it takes to create them. So if there is something in your life that you want to memorialize visually, and creatively, executed with painstaking detail, contact me.

I look forward to adding to your ability to recall pleasant memories or assist you in your commercial endeavors.

Sanford Gossman

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