David Talbot
Growing up in an age where images were showing up everywhere from animated films, children’s books, and comic strips, I became fascinated with how these images could capture one’s imagination. At age four, I was still recovering from Polio, which I had contracted in the spring of 1955 and it was then that I started painting. I had received a watercolor set for my birthday, and I remember very well the metal box that held the basic colors in little tubs. The enamel cover was a painting of Lancelot mounted on a steed, in full armor, riding toward a castle. Somewhere around this same time my parents took me to the Natural History Museum (now the museum of nature and science) in Denver Colorado. It was there that I discovered the remarkable background paintings in the zoology section. Each display exhibited animals from all over the world (stuffed) set in their natural environment. The floor was not only well set with rocks, brush, and natural terrain but where it met the back wall of the display it blended seamlessly into massive curved background paintings that placed the viewer into the scene.
Then in the early sixties while on a family vacation to Banff National Park in Canada I fell in love with oil painting. A young man, probably a college student was plein air painting with a palette knife, at a lodge on Lake Louise and was selling them as fast as he could finish one. I must have been 8 or 9 years old then and was derailed from hiking with the family as I had a cast on my right leg, recovering from yet another polio recovery surgery. My folks, seeing that I was enthralled with this man’s work asked if it would be okay if I watched him paint, so long as I didn’t become an annoyance. It must have been okay as we became friends during this day of my first real instruction in painting. Art class was always my favorite and then in my early twenties I took a year off from my college studies(?) to travel. I went alone on this adventure that took me across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, much of it by bicycle. Over this year I went to as many art museums as I could and would sit for hours studying different artists and their work and how they achieved the aspects of their paintings.
All these elements have come to play in my work both in PHOTOGRAPHY and PAINTING.
Looking back now at my love for photography it started with the most basic of cameras, a Kodak 100 Instamatic. The ones with a 12 shot, drop in cartridge (I still have it). This little shooter always left me with the desire to “get closer” and my desire grew to move on to a 35mm camera that would let me change lenses and extend my capabilities with zoom and telephoto. My first 35mm was stolen in Madrid Spain while on my first trip (mentioned above). Fortunately, in had that little Instamatic in my pack for backup! My next 35mm was a Praktika, an East German 35mm with screw mount lens’. This thing was a tank! I really cut my photographic teeth with this camera and is where I gained my confidence as a photographer. Back in college I had opportunity to take classes that allowed me to develop my dark room skills and to really grasp a wider scope of the skills needed to accomplish what I initially wanted from my camera, to support the habit!
Soon, together with my wife, I shot my first wedding, for free. Sound familiar? From this start in the 1980s we advanced as wedding photographers to the point that we were doing it full time, for 35 years! All this time I was carrying forward on my own interests as a photographer and I hope you will like what you see here and see how my photography and painting continue to manifest imagination.
Then in the early sixties while on a family vacation to Banff National Park in Canada I fell in love with oil painting. A young man, probably a college student was plein air painting with a palette knife, at a lodge on Lake Louise and was selling them as fast as he could finish one. I must have been 8 or 9 years old then and was derailed from hiking with the family as I had a cast on my right leg, recovering from yet another polio recovery surgery. My folks, seeing that I was enthralled with this man’s work asked if it would be okay if I watched him paint, so long as I didn’t become an annoyance. It must have been okay as we became friends during this day of my first real instruction in painting. Art class was always my favorite and then in my early twenties I took a year off from my college studies(?) to travel. I went alone on this adventure that took me across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, much of it by bicycle. Over this year I went to as many art museums as I could and would sit for hours studying different artists and their work and how they achieved the aspects of their paintings.
All these elements have come to play in my work both in PHOTOGRAPHY and PAINTING.
Looking back now at my love for photography it started with the most basic of cameras, a Kodak 100 Instamatic. The ones with a 12 shot, drop in cartridge (I still have it). This little shooter always left me with the desire to “get closer” and my desire grew to move on to a 35mm camera that would let me change lenses and extend my capabilities with zoom and telephoto. My first 35mm was stolen in Madrid Spain while on my first trip (mentioned above). Fortunately, in had that little Instamatic in my pack for backup! My next 35mm was a Praktika, an East German 35mm with screw mount lens’. This thing was a tank! I really cut my photographic teeth with this camera and is where I gained my confidence as a photographer. Back in college I had opportunity to take classes that allowed me to develop my dark room skills and to really grasp a wider scope of the skills needed to accomplish what I initially wanted from my camera, to support the habit!
Soon, together with my wife, I shot my first wedding, for free. Sound familiar? From this start in the 1980s we advanced as wedding photographers to the point that we were doing it full time, for 35 years! All this time I was carrying forward on my own interests as a photographer and I hope you will like what you see here and see how my photography and painting continue to manifest imagination.
All images copyrighted by David Talbot (c) 2020
Shutter & Brush
[email protected]
Shutter & Brush
[email protected]