The photography instructor emeritus is sharing fifty years of his professional and personal life through a wide assortment of photographs from film and digital cameras.
During that time the camera used in the beginning photography classes was the 4x5 view camera under the instruction of Geoff Winningham.
Advanced students were offered the use of many different cameras and lenses from the store room of the Media Center: Leica M-4, Widelux a 35mm camera with a moving lens that rotates degrees , Olympus Pen F half-frame, mm Yashica, Nikon F, even a fisheye lens.
Those were the beginning days of the Media Center when the Menils brought art, art history, film, photography, and Andy Warhol to Rice. The influences and contributions made by the Menils cannot be exaggerated.
Their commitment to bring photography and filmmaking, art, art history, and artists to the Media Center created a truly exciting community and a fertile space for budding artists. During those two years, the pay and working schedule followed the precedent established when John Lee Simon had the original position. The retrospective will showcase a wide variety of photographs from his Rice undergraduate years, through many commissioned and self-assigned projects, and including his most recent work.
