Master's Series Interview
                       William Neill

I recently had a chance to chat with William Neill, one of the most respected landscape/nature photographers in the world. His images have been stunning people for over three decades and has appeared in numerous books, posters, advertisements and galleries around the globe.  He is one of the more open and down to earth artist I've ever had the pleasure of speaking to.  Being a fan of William's work it was exciting to be able to pick his brain about photography, Ansel Adams, his career so far and his future.

Edward Mendes:  What made you originally pick-up a camera? 

William Neill:  Well, it started with my first year out of high school.  I was working in the National Parks during the summer between my college years and I started backpacking a lot; this was in Glacier National Park  I wanted to show people where I’d been and started taking an instamatic along with me and showing people the photographs and sharing my experiences with my friends. 

EM:  Do you have a formal education in photography? 

WN:  No, I don’t. 

EM: So you just learned as you went? 

WN:  Yeah, I studied Environmental Conservation in college and by the time I got out, I knew I wanted to be a photographer, in terms of photographing landscapes it kind of fit in with my education. 

EM:  By that time (after graduation) had you been working for some time creating work and developing your portfolio? 

WN:  I wasn’t that far along, but I knew I wanted to do it.  I took a few courses in college and that gave me some encouragement.  I just happened to end up in Yosemite one year out of college, which was 30 years ago now.  I started working for the National Park Service during the summers and into the fall.  A few years later I got a job at The Ansel Adams Gallery in 1980.  I went from being a maintenance man to a staff photographer at the Ansel Adams gallery in one fell swoop and my career was off and running. 

EM:  Working at the Ansel Adams gallery and having access to the great work that is shown in on a daily basis what do you consider your “Big Break”? 

WN:  It’s hard to pinpoint just one.  Getting that job (at the Ansel Adams gallery) was a big start. I meet a lot of people while I worked there, just coming through the gallery, people involved with book publishing, just little things really they weren’t major events. 

EM:  You just slowly made some connections. 

WN:  Yes, just started to make the connections and slowly branched out. Not one big thing.  I left the Ansel Adams gallery the same year Ansel past away in 1984 and was struggling along living in El Portal.  I got to know some publishers and got a few things published in some Yosemite books. One big thing was in 1988 I received a large spread in Communication Arts magazine, which is a very beautifully done art magazine that a lot of art buyers and directors get, that helped me a lot.  I got a poster contract through that, mostly it was little-by-little but there was always enough good things happening to keep me alive. 

EM:  Were you making your living solely with photography at that time? 

WN:  I’ve been self employed since I left the Ansel Adams gallery in 1984, not always easily. 

EM:  I know you’re breaking away from your 4x5 camera for some of your new work using digital SLRs, why is this? 

WN:  I kind of just stumbled into it.  While I was still using the 4x5 camera a lot I became associated with Canon and started using their 35mm film cameras about 12 years ago now.  Then I did several different book projects where I used a 35mm quite a bit, even though I did love the work I made with 4x5.  So, I got to use their (Canon) cameras and then when some of their high end digital cameras came along I just borrowed it I had no real intentions of doing anything except just learning what it was all about.  I didn’t really see a great application in my work for it.  But I was open minded enough to give it a try.  That got me started, then I started teaching for betterphotos.com and I had some students doing some “blurs”, panning photographs, and I just got excited about them and tried them myself. That was what sucked me into using digital camera, now pretty much all the time. 

EM:  So how much or you’re work is now Digital vs. 4x5 Film? 

WN:  I can’t remember the last 4x5 image I took; it’s been almost two years. 

EM:  The new work you’re doing is very impressionistic, how did you get started with this series? 

WN:  The students that were taking classes from me were showing work for critiques that were in this style.  I’d seen a lot of work like this done but not a lot of it was good but these guys were good and I saw the potential.  I went on a hike in the Sequoia groves with my family once up in Mariposa grove, I took a camera along and started trying it and it just start building upon itself. 

EM: That’s one of the great things about digital, you can just try it, something that would be hard with a 4x5. 

WN:  Yeah, I haven’t tried it; (with a 4x5) I’ve done it by mistake. Its an invigorating process, something so different then 4x5 because your seeing the feed back from the shot that you take, making adjustment, trying new things, it's very free from. 

EM:  Can you take us through the process that you think makes a strong impressionistic landscape image? 

WN:  For me, what I’m trying to do is the same I tried to do with the 4x5.  To make it feel real “new age”, to reveal the essences of nature.  The way I was doing it previously was with a 4x5 camera and finding magical compositions and situations where the sharpness and the reality of a 4x5 print blows you over because it was so real.  It was something that was not drawn up from your imagination; it was a real thing that had magic.  Impressionistic work is just a way of trying to capture the same energy of a scene and a situation; in a way turning it into a painting, painting with light and removing the context so you’re not drawing on the reality of something, it’s Aura in a sense, what the essential elements are. Take a green meadow and a cloudy sky, you’re not seeing the blades of grass, your not seeing sharp clouds but your seeing much like a painter might, abstract, when a straight photograph would just capture.  I had the opportunity to hang an exhibit last summer where both bodies of work were hung together and I was kind of nervous about that.  The people that were hanging it asked me to suggest how to display the photographs and I separated the two out, saying here are the impressionistic ones and here are the sharp ones and they just ignored what I suggested and mixed them up.  I got to see the show and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it worked; you could tell that it was done by the same photographer, the same eye seeing the same types of subjects in different ways. 

EM:  Looking at your website I’ve noticed your doing so much new work, how often do you get out shooting? 

WN:  Well, I really haven’t calculated it.  It depends what’s going on, most of its local first of all.  In the spring; I was photographing poppies and irises in my backyard.  I’m not going anywhere very much; I have a little waterfall in my backyard that I’ve used for that series.  I’m shooting a least once or twice a week, but I’ve been shooting everyday when the poppies and iris are in bloom.  But then there could be a couple of week gap. 

EM:  So, just like everything else when you get inspired you get out and work a little bit more, create more. 

WN:  I found with this type of imagery I don’t dwell as much on when I’m doing it, it abstracts things enough that what would normally be bad light is just fine. 

EM:  So are you photographing a lot in the middle of the day? Or are you still looking for the “magic light”? 

WN:  Well that’s what I mean, not as much. I’m taking the camera with me. I spent the last part of my career making special trips to make photographs; now I have a family and I’m doing stuff with them and going here and there. We went to Carmel camping and I brought my camera and when something happened I started photographing during the middle of the morning in Big Sur and I loved what I got.  I was also out with the family and the light wasn’t that good, if I was making a straight photograph it wouldn’t look that good.  Someone walking by would say “what is this guy doing photography this awful light”.  It makes it more possible to make something from nothing. 

EM:  All those new digital files and large resolution scans take a lot of hard drive space, what kind of hardware and software are you using to process and store your files? 

WN:  I use Photoshop CS3; I’m using light room on a daily basis to manage all the images as they come in.  I’m finding it quite useful in the editing process and converting things to jpegs and putting things on the web.  I use Macs, G5 and a lot of hard drives; I have a tape library back up that I use.  I have probably 3 terabytes of hard disk space.  A lot of the work I had scanned as 4x5 and those unflattened master files are close to 1 gigabyte each. 

EM:  It takes a lot of storage in the digital age.                                             

WN:  Yeah, I lost a 500 GB hard drive recently was able to restore it from my tapes. 

EM:  You hear so many photographers, when discussing how they discovered photography in the darkroom, mention that “magic” moment when they, for the first time, saw an image appear in the developer.  With more and more people “discovering” photography through digital cameras and Photoshop, do you think some of that darkroom magic, that wow factor is being lost? 

WN:  Well it’s a different kind of process but I don’t know if there’s any less magic when you have the experience, like I did, of working in a darkroom in college and making prints and you shouldn’t compare them.  The factor of mystery isn’t so strong with a digital capture, but it’s replaced with the magic of instant feed back and being able to improvise on the fly by adjusting compositions and exposures. That’s the sort of thing that you couldn’t visualize with film.  There are so many things that have improved, for so many years I had other people make my prints and I didn’t even do the Photoshop work for a long time.  I started using “ever-color” digital prints in 1993 so I started doing digital printing pretty early but they (the lab) were doing the Photoshop work and I didn’t have the money or the computer power to work on them. 

EM:  So are you doing all your own Photoshop now? 

WN:  Oh, yeah I am and I’m part of Canon’s Print Master program and I’m using their (Canon) printers and I’m all set up to do all my printing here now. 

EM:  What are some of the perks of being a Canon Print Master? 

WN:  Well, it’s an association where I get to use their printers and they get to use some of my work, it’s sort of a trading situation. 

EM:  It works out well I guess, you get to use all the new toys. 

WN:  Yeah, it’s scary on the other hand, because I have a 44 inch printer in my office that weights about 10 million pounds and it will be out of date in a year. 

EM:  Is it tempting to print everything as big as you can all the time? 

WN:  If you could see my office you wouldn’t be tempted to do that.  There’s no place to put anything. 

EM:  It’s a lot more convenient now. 

WN:  Well, it’s a lot of things, natural factors of the digital world.  You have far more control, quality, convenience and it’s cheaper.  I use to pay a lot for my prints; I didn’t like someone else having the control.  Your not seeing (when having someone else do your Photoshop work) the small adjustments.  I don’t do anything radical in Photoshop.  Now with Photoshop, before you’ve saved the file, you’ve seen 50 variations. 

EM:  You’ve always veered away from the “Grand Landscape” while many photographers are looking for Ansel Adam's tripod holes.  What interest you in the more intimate features of nature? 

WN:  Certainly Ansel influenced me in a lot of ways but it wasn’t to make grand landscapes.  Living in Yosemite for so long you stumble along those images even if you don’t try to.  It’s just not been my orientation. A couple of years ago the publisher for Sierra Club cards wanted to do box sets of Yosemite pictures using my work, and I couldn’t, after 25 years of photography here, find enough icons (images). 

EM:  What is it about the intimate features of nature that draws you in that direction? 

WN:  Just that, its intimate and not so overly descriptive.  It allows for me to show that what I’ve discovered isn’t what everyone else has seen. 

EM:  Do you think that’s helped you in your career, with galleries, publishers and stock, being a little bit different? 

WN:  Well, I was heavily influenced by Ansel and a lot of people around him to look for new ways of seeing things, in my case, in Yosemite.  That was really what motivated me.  It wasn’t that I thought of doing that because it would be a good marketing thing.  It’s what I was taught to do right out of college from Ansel and from his workshops, that it was how you made better art.  So the motivation to make creative art was behind it and then to add to that point, I would take advantage of the fact that what I came up with was different.  I certainly sold through commercial venues, stock photography, fairly typical descriptive images of Yosemite for calendars and posters, not necessarily my best or most creative photography.  The motivation was to find the most creative ways to express myself. 

EM:  You teach a lot, with your online classes at Betterphoto.com and through your column in Outdoor Photographer, what started you down that path? 

WN:  My mentor was Ansel, that’s where I cut my teeth.  I was just barely becoming a photographer when I got to know him and hung around his workshops and worked at his gallery.  That’s what was done by Ansel and all the people around him.  It’s just a simple matter of giving back; I don’t think it’s that tremendously unique, at least not in the arts. 

EM:  There are so many things in the professional world, your techniques and so on, that people don’t want to share out of fear and not being “special”.  You just don’t see that as much in the photography world. 

WN:  I think Ansel influenced a lot of people in that regard. 

EM:  Are you enjoying teaching the online class? 

WN:  I love it yeah, I teach this portfolio development class and it’s everything I’ve wanted in past workshops that I couldn’t do before.  I’d have people come back over and over again to take workshops in different locations and they’d never be any more organized or any better editors then they had been previously.  And I’ve finally constructed a course where people have to learn to edit and develop a theme and learn how to put a focus to their work, which is a big, big part of marketing. 

EM:  What’s on the horizon for you? 

WN:  That’s a good question; I continue to teach for my Betterphoto.com classes.  I started a blog recently, that’s been fun.  I still do shows.  The only show going on this year is at Mumm’s Winery, the Ansel Adams gallery always has a show going on and I’ll be showing 12 new images there.  Then here in the Oakhurst area the Sierra Arts Trails www.sierraarttrails.org is coming up in October which is real exciting.  People come to my house and I have dozens of prints out for people to see.  As far as books, I have a lot of book ideas though book publishing has really taken a hit in recent years so nothing definite is in the pipeline. 

EM:  Have you thought of Self-Publishing? 

WN:  Most definitely. 

EM:  Have your previous books gone through publishers? 

WN:  Yes, I’ve had 7 titled and they’ve found me basically.  So it worked out pretty well but now it’s harder to get things published.  I’m working on a book that I hope to have available later this year on CD; it will be a collection of landscape essays. 

EM:  Anything from your Outdoor Photographer Columns? 

WN:  It will largely be derived from those columns, but done in a different way.  Not just a collection of essays but I will be breaking the subjects down into composition, light and lighting. Also inspirational, philosophical essays will be included.  I’m just in the process of organizing and re-writing it to be more of a landscape photography manual but beyond the basics, a little out of the box kind of things. 

EM:  To get you inspired and out photographing. 

WN:  Hopefully, and not being content with the ordinary photograph. 

EM:  Well, I guarantee you I’ll be picking up a copy of that. 

EM:  Let’s end on a piece of advice, there’s that old catch 22 for photographers trying to get into the “fine art” world.  It’s almost impossible to get into a gallery without a long list of representations, but you can't get representations without getting into galleries.  What advice do you have for photographers trying to kick off their careers? 

WN:  Well that is a good question; I’ve often thought I’d hate to get my career started now. I think the competition has gotten kind of fierce.  There’s a lot more photographers in the field of nature and landscape photography.  But there are also a lot of niche markets, the local galleries, self-publishing, print on demand books for local topics, mailing lists you can buy to keep your work in front of people.  That includes galleries as well as publishers.  I know, for example, in Sacramento there’s a lot of little galleries that have popped up that sale photography. I’ve had one exhibit up there at the Viewpoint Gallery. 

EM:  It’s a lot of leg work, like anything else, trying to get your name out there and start your career.  You just have to get out there and work your butt off and hopefully something will come of it. 

WN:  Well, I’m established and it’s still a lot of work.  Things, even in well-established careers have their ebbs and flows, avenues of income can disappear on you.  I know from experience. 

EM:  You have to keep working. 

WN:  Yes, and you have to be diverse and not be too set on one direction, “I have to get into galleries or I’m no good”.   Start out small and keep building on it.  Get your work out in front of people, magazine publishers, keep submitting for contest.  Like my experience getting published in Communication Arts, I had a friend who got the magazine and said “You should enter the annual contest.”  The first time I entered, I got in, and I talked to the editor.  The next thing I know, I pulled off a big spread in the magazine and I had no idea how big of a deal it would be. 

EM:  And low and behold look what’s happened. 

WN:  That was 1988; it was a few years ago. 

EM:  Well I really appreciate you taking the time to chat. 

WN:  No problem, thanks. 

Links

More of William Neill's work can be seen on his website

and in the Master's Series Gallery

If you'd like to keep up-to-date with what William Neill is doing visit his blog

For more information about William's Betterphoto.com class visit Betterphoto.com

Other Whitespider Master Interviews

You can read, listen or watch our other Master's Series Interviews with photographers like Kim Weston and Robin Bartholick by clicking here .

Images appearing in this Interview by William Neill

(from top to bottom)

Half Dome and Tenaya Canyon at sunset from Washburn Point, Yosemite NP
Alder and granite boulder, Yosemite NP 1984
Untitled New Work (Trees)
Untitled New Work (Red Flowers)
Half Dome and elm tree, winter, Yosemite NP 1990
Mudcracks, Zion NP 1983
Ice and grass, Yosemite NP 1982
Untitled New Work (Pink Flower)