When Harvey Freed was a kid, he used to spend his summers hanging out at his Uncle Sid’s camera concession on Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica. This sparked the beginning of his lifelong love of photography.
He watched his older cousins develop and print the film and enjoyed the rumbling of the rollercoaster, which shook the stand as it came down.
Later, Freed was inspired by his brother-in-law, who did a lot of black-and-white photography. “I would go to Yosemite with my sister and her husband, and my little Brownie camera,” said Freed, who has always been drawn towards taking photographs of nature.
Between 1980 and 2000, Freed rented time at a darkroom in Santa Monica, where he developed and printed his own photos. Now 72 and a semi-retired periodontist, Freed is having his first-ever exhibit now through November 3 at the G2 Gallery Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice.
Photographs in “Nature L.A.” were taken during three camping trips to Yosemite in recent years. “I’m at my best when I’m by myself,” Freed says. “It’s contemplative to capture an image,” he says.
He enjoys sunrises and sunsets and landscapes as well as mountains and streams and trees. “I love camping. I backpacked this summer in Yosemite. If I could write poetry, I would do that. I want to be able to communicate the beauty of what I love.
“It’s a big challenge. I love that challenge.”
Photographing still subjects can be difficult. “A mountain doesn’t move, yet there is something beautiful about it,” Freed says. “It’s how to capture the majesty and mystery of it without making a big mishmash, and how you simplify and communicate. It’s never just a snapshot.” Though he occasionally shoots in Temescal Canyon, he focuses mostly on large mountains, landscapes and seascapes, and has shot in such varied locales as Antarctica and Bhutan.
Freed, a graduate of Fairfax High, UC Santa Barbara and dental school at USC, made the switch to digital photography about 10 years ago, though he still pulls out his film camera every now and then.
“Digital is really, really wonderful. There’s aspects of film it can’t compare with, but it’s immediate, and you have the ability to manipulate things. Conventional black-and-white silver prints still retain a luminosity and shade gradation that digital doesn’t match.”
All photographs in the G2 show are black-and-white, except for Yosemite’s Horsetail Fall (above). He jokes that his work will be on one wall, selling between $400 and $600, while Ansel Adams images will occupy another one, commanding six-figure price tags.
Freed, who has exhibited in group shows, is proud to have his first solo show. “I’m not a professional photographer, so this is validation,” he says. “It’s nice to have someone pat you on the back and say ‘that’s really cool stuff.’”
Though he doesn’t have any formal photography training, Freed has taken many classes, including some taught by former assistants of Ansel Adams.
He and his wife Judith, married since 1966, have lived in the Palisades since 1976, and their son, Adam, is a graduate of Palisades High.
Working part-time gives Freed more time to nurture his passions. “I get to go to the gym a lot more, photograph a lot more and travel a lot more,” including frequent visits to New York to visit his two grandchildren.
The artist’s reception begins at 6:30 p.m. this Saturday, September 21. The $10 admission fee will benefit environmental charities.
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