Photographer displays on lifetime behind the lens, from darkroom to digital (and again)

For practically twenty years, Tommy Gibson didn’t set foot in a darkroom. Glowing screens and SD playing cards rendered movie enlargers and light-sealed work areas out of date — but Gibson by no means forgot the magic of watching photographs seem in a processing tray.

“You know, I used to wake up and sniff fixer in the morning,” the Whatcom County resident joked. Starting this month, “I’ll get that smell again, get my fix. I was going into withdrawal.”

Gibson is an teacher on the Center for Lens Arts, which debuts this February on the Jansen Art Center. The initiative affords analog and digital pictures instruction, and options one of many solely public darkrooms within the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, Gibson will train a Saturday, March 28 class on digital infrared pictures: a way he steadily makes use of to create dreamlike, meticulously composed landscapes and nonetheless lifes.

“His approach to photography is like none other that I’ve seen,” mentioned Chris Moench, founding father of the Whatcom Artist Studio Tour (WAST), during which Gibson has participated since 2008. “There’s a lot of poetry or metaphoric meaning that you can draw out … When I look at his photos, I just get lost in the story.”

The Jansen’s new services characterize one other alternative for Gibson to share strategies he’s gleaned over an extended, hard-fought profession. He’s discovered his footing as an artist since retiring in Whatcom County — and at 82 years previous, Gibson has no plans to decelerate.

“I used to say to people, I know I’m a good photographer because I know my tools. But am I an artist?” Gibson mentioned. “Now, I’m starting to believe that I’m an artist.”

‘I always had a darkroom’

Gibson was born in New Jersey and moved to Whatcom County round age 13. He traces his love for pictures to an unlikely mentor: Rev. Melvin Bremer, who preached at Immanuel Lutheran Church in and was “always taking pictures.”

Yet Gibson didn’t turn out to be “obsessed” with the medium till maturity, a number of years after leaving the Navy. Welcoming a toddler impressed him to put money into a digicam: particularly, a Mamiya 1000 DTL.

“I had a coffee can on top of my refrigerator, and I put money into it ever so often, and that’s how I bought my first camera,” he recalled. 

By age 28, Gibson knew he needed to dedicate his life to pictures. He had a well-paid job with a telecommunications firm, but discovered creative methods to weave pictures into on a regular basis life. 

“No matter where I lived, after a while, I always had a darkroom,” Gibson added. 

At one level, Gibson moved to Hawaii for work and constructed a makeshift darkroom in a spare bed room. There, he put in an enlarger and dropped prints into buckets of developer and fixer. “There was a sink outside; I’d go outside and wash them,” Gibson recalled. “I would lose myself in there for hours.”

Always seeing photographs

When Gibson received laid off, he determined it was lastly time to pursue a level in pictures.

He labored as an educational assist throughout faculty, then took a industrial pictures job with FMC after commencement. Throughout the ‘90s, he struggled to steadiness adjunct work together with his day job, even quitting FMC for a interval to prioritize educating (regardless of the numerous pay minimize). 

Gibson ultimately landed a full-time position as photograph division chair at West Valley College. Even then, being a Black man in academia got here with challenges.

“Walking around on the skin, you have to know people,” he mentioned. “You just have to.”

During evening lectures, “I could look around, I could see who was going to stay and who wasn’t going to stay,” Gibson continued. “I knew the reason they wouldn’t come back was because of me — then I’d see them later on in a day class. So, I guess that’s the biggest obstacle I’ve had to overcome.”

Yet Gibson took an curiosity in college students who mirrored his ardour, educating them not simply how you can use a digicam, however how you can see. He inspired college students to develop their eyes by finding out Old Masters’ work. Though he defined his personal compositions step-by-step, Gibson additionally urged college students to not copy his perspective, however “make it your vision.” 

“Ed Weston once said: I should be able to look at my foot and find an image. And he’s absolutely right,” Gibson mentioned. “You know, I see images all the time. I’m always seeing images.”

Being in academia put Gibson forward of the curve on new know-how — although response to Photoshop was skepticism. “This is not photography,” he recalled saying. “This will never go anywhere.”

Yet the digital revolution ushered in new avenues for Gibson’s work, specifically inside infrared pictures. Converted infrared cameras seize gentle past the seen spectrum, bathing photographs in an otherworldly, ethereal glow. The course of suited Gibson’s eye for landscapes: Though he dabbles in quite a few genres, his pictures hardly ever embody folks.

“I was always enamored with infrared photography, but it was too much work,” Gibson mentioned.  “ … But when digital came along, it made it much easier. So [I’m] continuing to learn, and I will continue to learn photography till the day I die.” 

From movie to digital (and again once more)

In 2006, Gibson purchased a house in Whatcom County, the place he later retired and linked with artists reminiscent of Moench and Alan Sanders. The latter man was essential in creating the Center for Lens Arts, and recruited Gibson to work within the darkroom. 

“He’s very open, and good at listening to what people are doing and helping them move along in the direction that they want to go,” Sanders mentioned. “People find him easy to work with as an instructor, not intimidating in the least … He’s just really a joy to work with.”

Gibson is now one in all 5 photograph instructors alongside Sanders, Krystal Koop, Abe Olson and Doug Ethridge. The cohort completed a refresher class on darkroom strategies (which Sanders joked was akin to remembering how you can trip a motorcycle).

In addition to his educating, Gibson has flourished as an artist since returning to Whatcom County. In latest years, he’s shared work in solo exhibitions, juried exhibits at venues together with Allied Arts and the Whatcom Museum, and even publications reminiscent of Black and White Photography Magazine.

Most lately, Gibson established a downtown Bellingham studio on Bay Street, which he opens to the general public throughout First Friday artwork walks. That’s along with his involvement with WAST: Every October, Gibson invitations neighborhood members into the yurt-turned-studio on his property, adorned with analog cameras and archival prints.

Those prints could be on the market, however on the finish of the day, Gibson views pictures as “more about sharing than selling.”

“I came from nothing, for lack of a better way of putting it,” Gibson mentioned. “And [photography] has helped me to accomplish things in my life. Photography has given me a way of expressing myself, a way of giving back.”

Cocoa Laney is CDN’s life-style editor; attain her at cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 128.