Myron Rosenberg:
CLASS OF 1961
Palmdale High SchoolClass of 1961
Palmdale, CA
Myron's Story
Although my parents came from New York and West Virginia, I was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, June 25, 1943. It was wartime (WW¿II), and Dad was attached to the Army coast artillery.
At the time, there was some concern about a possible invasion in New England. I didn¿t do much during the War except quadruple
my weight.
After the War, Dad finished high school and enrolled at the University of Colorado. I quickly came to understand what the phrase, ¿working your way through college¿ means. Dad had several jobs, and Mom worked as well. It was not easy for a vet with a family, enrolled in a full-time college curriculum. At a young age, I gained a healthy respect for hard work and its rewards. I also came to love nature, getting a healthy dose of it in the Rockies.
We moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1952, where Dad earned his Master¿s Degree at Boston University. We then moved to Frederick, Colorado, later to Joplin, Missouri. In Joplin, at North Junior High, I learned that not every influence in life is positive. I had a physical education teacher who warned me away from the shot put, and who saw no value in my running ability. My art teacher gave me a D grade for both semesters. I recall these beautiful daffodils she wanted us to draw; my vision of them did not excite her. I have yet to take any art course because of this terrible ¿first failure.¿ These ¿teachers¿ did not build my self-esteem, nor did they whet my interest in these areas. Fortunately, in 1956, we moved to Palmdale, California, where both of my parents taught at my school, Palmdale High.
In Palmdale, I met Martin Soliah and Jack (Cumby) Jones; they each taught me English; more importantly, together, they were my track and football coaches. With little sentimentalism, I affirm that¿collaborating with my father¿s incessant pushing from within the family¿they got me to perform well beyond any fantasy I had (at that time) of my ability. I was all-conference in both sports, set league records in the shot put (!) and relay, and competed in the state semi-finals in both sports. Coach Jones, in an Oklahoma country boy (straightforward) sort of way, forged my courage and determination. Coach Soliah, more subtle, instilled in me optimism, confidence, pride, and the attention to detail. These three men, outwardly, were academic teachers and coaches, but the lessons they were really addressing were life¿s big issues. I owe them everything.
Dad treated my academic and athletic accomplishments with almost total intolerance...intolerance to anything but perfection, or, at least excellence. This is no overstatement. I remember, as if he were saying it today, him telling me why getting a C was ¿unacceptable.¿ He asked me what the grade C meant. I answered, ¿Average,¿ saying, ¿what¿s wrong with that?¿ He responded, ¿Another word for average is ¿mediocre.¿ Do you want to be mediocre?¿ He was the most effective motivator I have known. Showing him a test paper with a grade of 97, brought sharp invective, ¿Why isn¿t it 100?¿ There was no humor here, nor fun. Years later, when I was a teacher at Le Conte Jr. High in L.A., I saw this same parental influence in my best 7th grade math student, a Chinese immigrant. I was handing back test papers, and she had the highest score, a 95. She broke into uncontrolled sobbing, which required that I take her out into the hall, where she repeatedly said, ¿What will I tell my father?¿ I remember my eyes tearing with empathy.
Unselfishly, Dad sacrificed a personal closeness with me, just to mold me into a survivor and an achiever. I am, to be sure, driven. Coach Soliah noted and encouraged this quality in me, saying in my high school year book, ¿Don¿t ever lose your intense desire; there is nothing you can¿t accomplish!¿ Beneath my picture it reads, ¿Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.¿
My parents¿ socio-political awareness was a positive influence upon me as early as the first grade. Mom dressed me as a Gypsy woman for my class Halloween Party my first three years of grade school. I remember C.U.¿s international students (in their national attire) performing for my 2nd grade class. I loved it. Please note all the international humanistic cards and posters... I remember at the age of 7 having my mouth washed out with soap for uttering a racial slur. My Dad was a very active Kiwanian (international men¿s service club). When he sponsored a very well qualified black man, Walt Spiva, as a new member, and Spiva was rejected, Dad resigned, vociferously calling them bigots! And so I learned character, principle, and racial equality. I have tried to make a point of showing people as equals, racially and nationally. I truly believe there is a ¿Family of Man.¿ I am proud to be my father¿s son.
I attended the University of Colorado, then graduated in 1965, from San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University at Northridge) with a B.A. in political science. I lettered in track as a sprinter and javelin thrower. In 1968, I returned there for four more years of graduate work in history and education, earning Elementary and Secondary (Life) Teaching Credentials.
After college I served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.
But two years earlier, in 1963, while on weekend ¿liberty¿ from Marine Corps O.C.S., I visited Washington, D.C., with a fellow Marine, Dave Sanna. We jogged the city as Dave snapped pictures of the sights. I was so awed by the beauty I saw that the next week I was back on ¿liberty¿ with my first camera, an Argus C-3, I had just picked up at the base PX for $34. By accident, I double-exposed a picture of the Iwo Jima (Marine Corps War Memorial) Statue. It expressed feelings I couldn¿t speak in words; later, my mom told me she felt it was art, and she meant it! For the first time I came to see photography as an emotional expression, rather than just a pictorial representation of objects in front of the camera.
Later in the ¿60s, I briefly went to law school, worked as a case worker for Public Assistance in New York City, a cost accountant for the Mead Paper Corp., and I was a probation officer in a juvenile detention facility in the Malibu Mountains. I tried everything... All the while, I was tantilized by photography, and even though I was constantly broke, I kept buying more lenses. Dad, not seeing the wisdom of this¿how could he¿presented me with a cartoon which showed a man admiring his new yacht. The caption read, ¿Any fool can plainly see the difference between a necessary boat, and food, clothing, and other junk.¿ Dad wasn¿t suble. I do not fault him.
In the early ¿70s, my leisure time was involved with year-round mountaineering with Boris Savik and Carl Stude. At this time, I met John Wolf, a talented photographer who owns Wolf Color Lab in Thousand Oaks, California. Upon taking my film to his lab for processing, I began to see what really was possible for me photographically. Wolf not only made beautiful prints of my work, but he gave me an extensive photography course in the form of constructive criticism. His excellent craftsmanship as a printer has been fundamentally responsible for my success in making a career of photography. Wolf continues to do all of the printing for my gallery.
The relationship which I had with Boris and Carl turned out to be very important to me. Many climbers care most about reaching the summit, giving lip service to the beauty enroute by mumbling a few flattering superlatives. But, these fellows were different. They loved photography, and wanted to ¿see¿ everything. We mutually had the patience to wait for each other as we each explored minutia and possible perspectives for photographs. I remember Boris dropping to his knees on a frozen streambed, saying, ¿Look through this macro lens at those dendritic ice crystals.¿ What I saw was a kaleidoscopic wonderland. The amazing truth is we almost always ¿made¿ the summit...and we climbed in storms, in the winter, and on big mountains, like Rainier and Olympus... I concede that we made numerous descents at night¿often without flashlights¿but with many beautiful sights on film. I was falling in love with the process of feeding my visual senses with wild places. This was an informal workshop for seeing, really seeing. I began the struggle to interpret the visual world in the strongest possible way...artistically.
Teaching school, coaching, mountain climbing, and photography kept me busy through 1976. In 1975, I visited Ansel Adams at his home in Carmel Highlands, California. As a well-traveled climber in the Sierra Nevada, I knew well his much-loved photographs, and was overwhelmed that he would receive mere mortals at his home. He did so with much charm and sincerity, no airs. He patiently looked at my photographs, finally saying, ¿You have a fine eye; you should move up to a 4x5¿ view camera, and get serious about this interest.¿ This statement, by him, is, without question, my quintessential inspirational motivator to ¿make¿ photographs.
Only days later, Maureen, a photographer who was closing her portrait studio, knowing I really wanted a 4x5, angelically told me
she was selling me her equipment (for almost nothing...) and with time payments. Student enrollments were decreasing, and so was
the amount of substitute teaching I was getting (at this time I was living out of my car). Nevertheless, I accepted her wonderful offer. I bought Adams¿ photo series books, and began learning photography.
In the summer of 1975, I worked on a salmon troller off Ucluelet, British Columbia. In the fall, I got work ¿in the woods¿ near the Quinault River of northwest Washington. Logging forced me to weigh the controversy of ¿development versus depletion of irreplaceable natural resources¿. I could no longer sit on the fence; my hands were soiled. I had to deal with it. I lost my naive anachronistic notion of taming the wild, and replaced it with values that honor nature. In an associated metamorphosis, I be...Expand for more
came a vegetarian. I recognized the significant contribution photography, and photographers Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter, Ernst Haas, and Joseph Muench, made to state the persuasive case for the environment. I wanted my photographs to be considered as worthwhile.
1976 and 1977 were disastrous; I was still living out of my car. Early in 1976, I was critically frostbitten (and hospitalized for a month) mountain climbing. Dad, seriously ill for several years, died in 1977. I finally resurfaced (emotionally) in early 1978. At this time a good friend, Kerry Hearden, studio assistant for the noted commercial photographer, Jon Tavel, put his arm around me, and with great conviction and gusto, told me, ¿You¿re a talented photographer, Myron; but you are not following the first two rules of business...and, since I know you don¿t know them, they are: 1) Get the money! and, 2) Get the money!¿
I began to understand the necessity of commercializing the art I was creating; and that until and unless I did so, I would remain insolvent and unable to establish a free lifestyle so necessary for an artist.
By 1978, I conceded that academia could not support me and my photography habit. Manual labor was my only hope for success. I moved to Coos Bay, Oregon, car-camped, and unloaded fishing boats. Soon, I was filling in as a deckhand on shrimp and bottom-fishing boats. The money was great. I was re-acquiring self respect.
By August, most boats were headed to Alaska in quest of more substantial catches. On speculation, I drove to Kodiak, Alaska. Having ¿sea time,¿ I was optimistic about getting work. I went to sea on the Charlotte B, fishing for king crab off Kodiak Island and in the Bering Sea. The money was stupendous, but the work was the hardest and most dangerous I have done, before or since. This was life on the edge, neither pretentious nor lacking in value. Little is known about the men who go to sea in Alaskan waters. (I was to realize, later, I had crewed on six boats which sank, two men being lost.) I used all the money I made that year to buy a state-of-the-art 4x5¿ Toyo View ¿G¿ camera. I returned to Santa Monica for the winter. In the summer of 1979, I worked on the Misty Moon, a salmon seiner in Southeast Alaska. My skipper, Boris Olich, locked up my cameras, but not before I made the image of ¿F/V Hollywood¿. In the fall I, again, went king crabbing, but crabbing was in decline; I had to find,yet,another way to feed my camera.
All 1980-81, I worked in Southern California as an oil field derrick hand. It was grimy, strenuous, and very dangerous to one¿s body parts. I came to identify with the ¿common man,¿ developing a profound interest in the unsung hero¿the person you see everyday, everywhere¿and his daily struggle. I am intrigued how hard work etches its own ¿look¿ upon mankind. Later photographs, Three Chukchi Men, Calligrapher, Hands that Work, Hands that Harvest, Santiago Jimenes, and Farmer Henry Pilgrim come from this interest.
In January, 1982, I moved to Vancouver, Washington, in an effort to divest myself of a land investment. Mt. St. Helens had just exploded and so did the local economy. In vain, I did everything to salvage my investment. Meanwhile, the time I spent in the Portland area was valuable. I finally learned how to use the view camera, and I much better understood Adams¿ Zone System. I was ready to DO.
I drove to Alaska in July, 1982, to get work in the Alaska north slope oil field. I was very hireable, but could not get on because of big lay-offs. In desperation, I found employment as a bar waiter at the Bush Company, the pre-eminent nude dance club. I intended to stay in Alaska and make a go of it, and I was willing to do anything legal to survive. It was an easy choice, being that ¿I firmly believe that you cannot summon all your will, all your strength, all your effort for that last desperate move, until you believe that the last bridge is down behind you, and there is nowhere to go but on.¿ I had ¿burned my bridges¿ in California and ¿crossed my Rubicon.¿
Winter was closing in around me as I car-camped with my sleeping bag extended out the window. One morning
I woke up to find six inches of snow on top of my feet! Miraculously, Lois Kosicek, Harriett Drummond, Tom Hague, and Sealand hired my camera; Jim Strong at Yukon Office Supply was first to buy my prints; Dwayne Triplett of KIMO Television promoted my images on the air; Steve Wilbur of Wilbur Air rented me a helicopter for half price, which I used to get the most important photograph of my life. With this friendship, I was able to get through my first winter.
I began to make new photographs of beautiful Anchorage and Alaska. In early 1983, I photographed in Dutch Harbor and, later, fished (commercially) for herring in Bristol Bay with Dean Paddock on the F/V Cutting Edge. Dean gave me his over-sized bunk so I could get my camera gear in it with me. He slept on the galley floor for six weeks, never ever uttering a word of regret. During non-fishing lulls, we would use his boat and our legs to explore. He dropped me off, sparcely provisioned, at Round Island Walrus Sanctuary. Returning to Anchorage in July, I lived out of my car again (for the last time, I hope). All of my time was spent going from office to office, showing my photographic prints. The Anchorage community supported my photography¿a common Alaskan story, helping a newcomer or a new enterprise¿and, within months, I was living in normal digs.
In January, 1985, I traveled to China; and later, as a guest of Singapore Airlines, spent two months photographing in Singapore and Malaysia. Upon returning to America, I met my printer. At his suggestion, and with his creative input, I began publishing my line of lithographic art prints (now numbering over 100 titles). Without the backing of Ray Swartz, who, without any personal benefit (or collateral), lent me the money, and of Sam Salkin (Alaska Commercial Company), who pre-ordered, and pre-paid for, an unknown product, I would still be dreaming of my first lithograph!
I had a new product, in a sense, a new business, and with it big problems.
In 1986, I was an official photographer for Liberty Weekend¿s ¿Operation Sail,¿ celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. For three days, the Marines provided a helicopter for my use over New York harbor. One of my Op Sail pictures ran as a double-spread in the 50 Year Anniversary issue of Life Magazine. This led to later assignments with Life.
Myron Rosenberg Gallery opened in 1987, and, simultaneously, I introduced my note card line. Bill Mundy, my landlord, reduced my rent by half to help me through the terrible winter months! What a decent man. Since opening the gallery, it has been difficult to get away, but in 1989, I spent several weeks in Magadan Region, Russia, as a guest of the Minister of Culture, Victor Sovchenko. A few months later, Three Chukchi Men won the Juror¿s choice Award at the Alaska Positive Exhibition at the Alaska State Museum. The Smithsonian Institution authorized me to publish three posters for the Crossroads of Continents Exhibition, and to use their exhibition logo on note cards of Alaskan/Russian indigenous people.
In 1990, Nicholas Kazan of Cafe Europa sponsored a hosted trip to Rumania. In early 1991, I traveled through several southeastern and midwestern states, then I photographed in Puerto Rico, hosted by Puerto Rico Tourism Company.
In 1993, I was retained by the National Capital Planning Commission, (Washington, D.C.) to create the interpretive photography for the Monumental Core Plan¿the new hundred-year plan for the nation¿s capital. In 1993, Trans-Brazil Airlines invited me to photograph Brazil.
In 1994, Farmer Henry Pilgrim and White Corn won the (best) Photo Award at the All Alaska Juried Art Exhibit at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.
In 1995, I was invited by the World Lutheran Church to visit Cameroon in Equatorial West Africa to create a dedicated card line. In February, 1998, I photographed the Mayan Mam people in the Chuchumatanes Mountains in Guatemala.
Many people have been responsible for my growth, artistically, and commercially. (Sadly, without a patron, the two realms are intertwined.) Help has come in the most unlikely and wonderful ways: the stranger who volunteered his boat for me to cross New York Harbor during Operation Sail, and then demanded I come to his party in the Empire State Building (from which I made the Life Magazine picture); Bill Cherry who threatened to break my legs if I didn¿t go with him to see the truck (First Rule of the Arctic); and, of course my many subjects for putting up with me, and in believing in the value of the mutual effort. Many of them gave of themselves both in time and effort as if I were trusted family. I cannot recall a single subject who was not a delight.
Sponsorship has come from Mamiya America Corporation, importer of my Toyo View ¿G¿ 4x5¿ and 8x10¿ cameras, Fuji Film, USA, my only film, (note the beautiful colors); Remin Lab (its compact photo dolly, Model Tricart 800 Kart-a-Bag, has gotten me to, through, and out of many tough airports, etc., with my ton of equipment.
My friend, architect Jon Kumin, created the beautiful gallery venue in which I showcase my creations.
I wish to thank each and every person who gave me even one bit of constructive criticism¿right or wrong; all those who told me of a place or person I should photograph, or who helped me in the process, spelled the difficult words, the many who helped carry my gear, drew me a map, guided me to, and/or urged me on to make the photograph, despite... I am, after all, very fortunate to have had those two teachers in the seventh grade, who so emphatically told me I couldn¿t... What I discovered, is that I can, and well.
Lastly, I wish to acknowledge any¿and all¿who have purchased anything I offer, even an inexpensive note card. This gesture of approval, and support, has been, cumulatively, the essence of my work.
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