It was a contest in a Boys Life magazine that started Howard Ramsden on his long journey as a photographer.
“If you sold so many Christmas cards, you earned enough points to exchange them for a number of different items,” he said. “The one thing I was interested in was a box camera.”
Today the photographer, who is prepping for his upcoming solo show at Valley Arts Gallery, which runs from Oct. 2 to 27, doesn’t even remember the brand his first camera was. But he does remember the immediate passion he had for the art form. Since earning the camera, Ramsden has gone on to build a name for himself as a consummate photographer, focused on documenting subjects such as landscapes, historic architecture, and Native American rock art.
The first thing Ramsden’s parents did when he got his camera was give him a developing kit for Christmas, another key element in his evolution as an artist.
“The kit included the first set of chemicals and a developing tank,” he said. “And it also had a little box you put the negative in. It would make a 4-inch-by-6-inch print, using a regular incandescent light bulb to expose the paper.”
It was a rudimentary set of tools, but it got the job done and taught Ramsden the fundamentals of how to manipulate light to create an exposed image. Later on, in high school, Ramsden upgraded to an Argus C3, a rangefinder camera that was mass produced at a low price, aimed at budding amateur photographers who were flocking to the hobby in the 1940s and 1950s. He used the camera to learn more about photography, part of a lifetime self-taught practice.
“A lot of what I learned was from reading and looking at photos other people had taken to get ideas,” Ramsden said. “Back in those days, it was all black and white.”
Ramsden enjoys the outdoors; he grew up camping and hiking and still turns to natural landscapes for much of his inspiration. When he was old enough to hike alone, he would spend hours and hours on his own, searching and exploring nearby trails and hills, especially in the Sierra Nevada.
Part of his skill is his keen knack for printing images. Ramsden is a seasoned darkroom veteran, who has amassed countless hours developing prints and studying the way light and chemicals affect a final image.
Another remarkable thing to note about Ramsden’s work is that he still shoots much of his work on film, a product that’s harder to come by in recent years. He develops the film himself, but without a working darkroom, Ramsden turned to digital software to help him produce his work. It’s a process he treats delicately, respecting his old-school darkroom roots as he works.
“I scan the negatives,” Ramsden said. “I can do the same things I can do in a wet darkroom digitally. I tend to be a traditionalist. I stick to what the subject matter really looked like … it’s a lot of dodging and burning.”
Ramsden is also a fan of infrared photography, which he’s recently started using more. Infrared photography blocks out visible light, exposing only infrared images. The process allows photographers to capture what many refer to as the unseen world, an idea that Ramsden connected with immediately. A workshop he attended from famed outdoor photographer George Lepp led him to the medium.
“I was still shooting film,” Ramsden said. “He had several cameras that were converted to infrared and let anybody interested take one out. … I shot a bunch of pictures [at Los Osos Oaks State Reserve] and loved it.”
From there, Ramsden had one of his older digital cameras converted to infrared and has shot many of his current images that way. Every image in his new show is black and white, including Ramsden’s historic architecture work, which features old ranch houses, churches, missions, and other sites in Santa Barbara County and beyond.
“I just love those places,” Ramsden said. “I still love to explore and take pictures.”
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose is often in the dark. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 4, 2018.