Jim Young
Photographic Artist
I began my interest in art in high school in Fort Bragg, California, located on the spectacular Mendocino Coast, where I was fortunate to have as a teacher the renowned California watercolorist of the 1950s and 60s, Richard Yip. In college at Humboldt State in northern California, I majored in biology and minored in art. There I took my first and only class in photography, but the art training overall gave me a sense for composition that migrated into my photography.
Upon completion of a graduate degree, I became a fishery biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, then a research scientist for a US Department of Energy national laboratory, specializing in marine biology, groundwater chemistry, and electron microscopy.
Upon retirement in 2004, I moved to the Oregon coast and resumed art as a hobby, first drawing and painting, then with an early digital camera, photography. I displayed my early photos at a local art show, and to my surprise, people bought them. I expanded into other arts-&-craft shows, farmers markets, restaurants, and in 2011 the Wild Rain Gallery near Tillamook. What began as a hobby became a small business.
Why do I take pictures? One, I am still a biologist and volunteer for several non-profits involved in environmental education at schools and for the public. Here I use photography as documentation, illustrating articles I write for a website and publications. Two, and probably more important, I consider myself an artist with photography my medium and Nature my primary subject. There is art in Nature. My aim as a photographic artist is to capture images expressed in nature that would be fleeting and forgotten if not recorded permanently for people to enjoy after the events have passed. With this in mind, I combine my biology background, my love of Nature, and my desire to preserve those ephemeral moments that can be so moving, to spark our emotions and bring joy.
High Dynamic Range ( HDR) photos are three images combined, one correctly exposed, one over exposed, and one underexposed, to bring out detail in light and darkened areas that the eye can normally see but the camera cannot capture in a single image.
Save the date and time. July 1st, 5-7pm. WAVES opening reception.