f8 Pasadena Salon

Founded in 2007, f8 Pasadena Salon is dedicated to the art and aesthetics of photography —merging photographic philosophy with visual imaging. Salons consciously follow Horace's definition “either to please or to educate” (“aug delectare aug prodesse est”)” “A salon is a gathering of like-minded people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation.”

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Bill Wishner

I started my career in photography more than 20 years ago focusing on music (jazz). My jazz photographs have been part of multiple exhibits. I was co-editor (with Bill Minor) of the 40th Anniversary book for the Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years, Angel City Press, 1997).

Starting in 2012, as a Visual Hunter, I turned my creative lens on the urban environment in cities around the world. The project, entitled “Artifacts: Art of the City Wall” focuses on transformative visual art of urban walls.

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Cyndi Bemel

Storytelling is at the cornerstone of what inspires me. My long passion for photography started with my first Kodak Instamatic 110 camera. Since then, my camera has been my trusty companion reflecting the complexity and adversity in the world around me. My work spans all types of photography from portraiture to street / sports photography to photojournalism.

I'm energized to capture the spontaneous humor and peculiarities which leads me to move through the world with a youthful eye of awe and wonder. I seek out the unusual and pride myself on finding the un-findable, whether it's in my own backyard or in the middle of some small village on the Thai/Myanmar border.

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Joe Loudermilk

Joe Loudermilk has been an avid photographer, with a love of black and white photography since 1975, originally working in 35 mm film and then switching to digital photography in 2008. Although Joe’s primary profession is that of an architect, his architectural eye has heavily influenced his photography.

Photography has also provided Joe a second artistic outlet. Where architecture as an art form requires a very long duration of time from conception to completion, photography has provided Joe an artistic outlet with a relatively short realization period. As an architect, Joe has a deep appreciation for those who build and maintain the world around us. The images selected by Joe in We Work captures a few of those moments.

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Mark Myers

Thank you for your interest in my Death Valley Memories print series. My mother and aunt had the unusual experience of being the daughters of a Naval Officer stationed in Death Valley in 1934! Grandpa oversaw a Civilian Conservation Corps work group building roads. Death Valley Scotty was an occasional dinner guest. Mom attended grade school with the local Shoshone Indian kids and learned to swim in the pool at the Furnace Creek Inn. Death Valley is a diverse and magical land made more special to me because of our family memories and contributions to its development.

I am a cardiologist who has had the privilege of helping people to mend their broken hearts. My own well being is energized by the delight I find in discovering and sharing the marvels of our amazing world.

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Chris Kleine

My inspiration in pursuing photography began in the late 70’s after I attended a show of 100 Ansel Adams photographs at the LA County Museum of Art. That magical experience propelled the start of a process that continues to this day...the joy and satisfaction of making photographs in the spirit of the West Coast Tradition of Photography, using old school methods of exposing and processing film and making silver gelatin prints under an enlarger in my darkroom. But also and perhaps more importantly the philosophy behind my personal vision in what I refer to as “The Process of Discovery”… the exploring of remote subjects of interest in nature or the immediate world around me where various elements of light, shadow and subject matter combine to form a “Visual Vortex” that I then use in creating a photographic composition.

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James Staub

‘Vessels’ from the Lightbox Series

In 1990, I was given a lightbox from the Astronomy Division at Caltech. It served well in viewing and sorting negatives and positives. But, in a short while, I began using this illumination source to photograph, with a 4”x5” view camera, found and everyday objects placed on the floating weightless world of the lightbox.

As I scanned the analog negatives into digital files, I was afforded a reassessment of the two decades old lightbox project. The photographs began to emerge from their forensic documentary state into malleable unfettered images that had passed through the alchemy of Photoshop into the transfigurations I present to you today.