50 Years of Photography: A Retrospective by Tim A. Fleming

Artist Statement:

The Exhibition. Photographs 1966 to 2024. 

It is a collection of my images, from my teen age years to present time.

My earliest work.
I’ll show some of my earliest work, How I saw things (at ages 12 to 15), not my best work, of course, but just to compare. I started printing my own images at age 14 when I bought a Darkroom from a neighbor (only $10 down and $5 a month). Printing my own work gave me quick feedback that helped me to learn faster as I took roll after roll of film around Fresno, my neighborhood and at school.

High School and College
In high school, the photography teacher was an ART teacher who was “assigned” to teach photography. This was a good thing (for me) because I already knew the basics and he was exceptional at teaching artistic composition. While attending Fresno City college, the photography teacher was really a MATH professor and instead of retiring he stayed on to set up and grow the photography department. He taught photography by skillfully describing processes and techniques using mathematics and formulas. This was perfect timing for me as I was taking math and chemistry classes at the time. It made everything seem more interesting because I could see how the math could describe photographic processes, camera use and exposure.

The many Activities going on around me provided my subjects. My sister was
competing in gymnastics, so I made photographs of her team, this led to work from other teams. My mom showed my gymnastics photography to the Fresno Ballet group, I was hired to photograph the Ballerinas at their performances. I also worked several part time photography jobs during college to pay my bills (and buy more camera stuff). I exhibited my work at two different galleries there in Santa Cruz. 

Santa Cruz and Shaver Lake
I moved to Santa Cruz and got a Job at Bay Photo Lab in 1977. My boss let me use the lab after hours, to print my own work. I met many amazing photographers at the Lab. After moving to Shaver Lake, where I got my own darkroom up and running again, I made great strides in teaching myself the Ansel Adams Zone system using his series of books.

Back to Fresno
In 1978 to 1981, I traveled to cities in the Western states to sell my landscape photos at art shows and crafts fairs. My brother and I flew and sold Hang gliders during this time period, and we traveled to many hang glider mountain flying sites to meet new customers. This gave me more precious time to be in the mountains and capture wonderful landscape images as well as people flying.

My Brick and Morter Location.
1981 to 2001, I operated a professional Lab called Flash Foto. It had two locations. The tower district and a north Fresno store. We did black and white film and Color film developing, and printing. This gave me the opportunity to meet many great photographers from all over the country as they traveled through Fresno to California and the national parks. The company grew to over 100 commercial clients. I spent my vacations and long weekends out in nature, photographing whenever I could.

Working from Home
2002 to the present, I have enjoyed working as a professional photographer in my home studio building. I have also worked on my own “Artistic” and landscape photography. I traveled to several western states and in California making the images I will present here.
Thank You for reading,
Tim A. Fleming

On May 10, 7 pm, I will give a talk and Q&A about my life in photography at Spectrum Art Gallery. Using these Techniques, Processes and Styles I will present my work in these categories:
Landscapes and Still Life prints, Infra-Red Photography, Intentional Camera movement (ICM), Rorschach Inkblot Test or Mirror image-I call it “Flip n Fold”.
Painted photographs, a technique that uses Photoshop to paint over an image.
Portraits, in Color and Black and White – Painted – ICM – Performers – Sports.
Composite Images, combining 2 or more images into one piece.