About

James Cooper says of his work: "Remember when you were a child, how a simple little thing could galvanize your entire being -- time stood still and you felt totally connected to the world -- there was a feeling of total contentment. My desire would be to think that these images could produce that same experience."

The fact is that when one stands in front of one of Cooper's works, one wonders -- in this era of computer graphics -- if his images have been manipulated. The answer is no; they are un-manipulated. The artist states: "My position has always been that the image is the transparency film or print film image created by what the camera records. Hence, the process of producing an image includes only the camera and the film. And, for my work, the transparency film or print film should be manufactured to record as closely as possible what is rendered through the camera lens -- no additional saturation dyes or other chemical enhancements." James continues: "While there is not always a moral imperative to present un-manipulated photographs, many people who are primarily interested in photography as an art form believe that knowledge of whether or not photographs have been manipulated is of critical importance when looking at and aesthetically appraising them -- that un-manipulated images which faithfully represent what the photographer witnessed (saw) are aesthetically very different from images that were synthesized in the darkroom or in an image-editing program like Photoshop."

The artist obviously knows much about "pigment" prints. At a time when millions of homes and offices are equipped with inexpensive, high-quality printers linked to equally affordable computers and scanners, it is easy to forget that little more than a dozen years ago digital imaging and printing were still in their infancy. The prospect of a high-resolution fine art print that could rival traditional photographic printmaking in terms of aesthetic value and longevity was still a dream being pursued by only a handful of visionaries. Among those early digital pioneers were rock musician Graham Nash and friend and former Crosby, Stills, and Nash road manager R. Mac Holbert. Together, in 1991, the two founded Nash Editions, the first fine art digital print studio in the world. Conceived in 1989, Nash Editions is now widely recognized as the premier fine art digital print studio in the country. The extraordinary body of work produced at Nash Editions represents the entire spectrum of artistic involvement in digital imaging since the medium first became viable in the late 1980s, from highly manipulated images composed in the computer or on a digital scanner to straight photography that has been printed digitally from scans of the negative. After early skepticism, many artists -- including, for example, David Hockney, whose experiments with photography and traditional fine art printmaking are well known, and Robert Heinecken, who, among others, pioneered techniques that blurred distinctions between photography, painting, and other fine arts -- have embraced the medium and are actively engaged in developing its potential.

James Cooper works exclusively with Nash Editions. The reason is no doubt found in co-founder Holbert's statement: "One of the misconceptions about this medium is that if you can buy the equipment, you're immediately a fine-art printmaker. There are reportedly some two hundred and fifty digital printmakers in the United States, but much of what we've seen wouldn't make it to our clients as a proof. The most important tool is still your own eye. You're going to be wrong almost every time if you allow the technology to make decisions for you."

The artist, taking us back to our childhood, concludes on his work: "If the images can produce that child-like experience, just for a split second, then maybe we can change just a little from the experience."

Antoinette Sullivan
Studio Gallery

Background

It is an irony of our modern age, with its emphasis on advanced technology that many of the images in this collection come forth from more that three decades ago. For James Cooper the pursuit began in the mid-seventies, a journey with a vision to capture and record the essence and emotion from his experience of the environments and what they had to say.

While Cooper's series, Only in California, was photographed during two separate periods, the first during the seventies and the second starting in 2005 as an ongoing project, he has continued to rely on pure photographic techniques to attain the powerful effects that contemporary photographers can now achieve through digital manipulation. Linking the past to the present, it is the combination of classically composed images being produced using some of the most advanced printing processes, that make this collection so unique.

These limited edition prints have been realized as a result of two distinct techniques: some have been produced using the technology created by Nash Editions, "pigment printing", where a photographic image is reproduced with ink on art and specialized papers, and the other technique using traditional photographic processes. Each has its own distinct look and beauty. James Cooper was born in 1952 and has spent all of his life in California. As a child, he lived in Palos Verdes, an area of dense trees, rolling hills, and pristine views of the Pacific Ocean. As a young man, he extensively traveled the California coastline on surfing expeditions where he encountered nature in remote areas. It was during this time that he acquired his first cameras, a 35mm Exakta and a medium format twin-lens Mamiya C330 Professional. Determined to capture the brilliance of what he experienced, he developed an eye from a unique vantage point, which was reflected as the mood and light seen in his images. In recent years he has returned to many of the same remote areas and has continued with his series of photographic images, Only in California, still shooting transparency film with his original Mamiya and the addition of a Mamiya 645 AFDII and a 35mm Leica R8.

Artist Statement

Remember when you were a child how a simple little thing could galvanize your entire being -- time stood still and you felt totally connected to the world -- there was a feeling of total contentment.

I have a belief in a self-evident truth that human nature, if nurtured properly, is innately compassionate towards everything around it, and that the human condition is naturally one of peace and a positive fullness of one's existence. It is incumbent upon cultures, through their inculcating and socializing mechanisms, to facilitate the development and realization of these innate human propensities.

However, as the political philosopher Karl Marx pointed out in his treatise on human nature, work, particularly as it relates to using one's hands, and the work environment itself through the new industrialization of economies and cultures, estranges individuals from any fulfillment derived through a person's work. This process becomes so pervasive and insidious that Joseph Campbell, the renowned writer on mythology, refers to our "economic activities" and how consumed and alienated we have become by these activities. As industrialization permeates culture, culture in turn permeates work. From this, the estrangement is exacerbated by what Jean-Paul Sartre, a philosopher generally associated with the "existentialist" school of thought, refers to as "filling a hole". This filling the hole is a drive, a need, perpetuated by culture, to acquire material things. This drive can become so powerful and transcendent, that he equates its power to the power of our senses, in effect, becoming one our senses.

As a counter point, the eastern philosopher Lao Tzu encourages us to unlearn and become as a child again in order to begin to experience our connection with nature and ourselves, and to embark on a path of existence that will help us achieve our true potential as passionate beings, enlightened custodians of nature, and the self-fulfilling contentment that is attendant to such an existence.

My desire would be to think that these images could produce the experience of a simple little thing that could galvanize your entire being -- time stops, and you feel totally connected to the world -- there is a feeling of total contentment. If they can, just for a split second, then maybe we can change just a little from the experience. Perhaps that experience can be built upon by more split seconds until that other beingness becomes more prevalent and becomes a part of us. I know it can be done. I have seen it happen. I think of my grandfather, John Thomas Oursler. I think of Ernst Leitz II and the employee oriented philosophical foundations upon which he operated his company -- remembering each employees first names and how he endeavored to design and build Leica cameras and lenses to be the finest cameras and lenses in the world. Or, the current movement in design embodied by the Scandinavians, or the "pop" and contemporary artists pushing boundaries, and the unmistakable presence one feels in looking at an old master.

I am intrigued by how the camera, the lens, the film, and the reproduction technologies -- which ironically are byproducts of industrialization -- have been built and how they combine to "see" and produce an image regardless of who is behind the camera. Sometimes the images try to celebrate what these combinations produce as an image. Still others try to distill the contradiction and incongruity of what we have produced as our epistemology compared to what our potential could be. And sometimes there is just enlightenment through the beauty of forms and objects.

James Cooper

Photographs by Cheryl