George DeWolfe Talks About Photo Opportunities Around Zhangjiajie

George has been a photographer for over 40 years. He has a MFA in Photography and studied with Ansel Adams. George can also claim expertise in Perception, having studied with Dr. Richard Zakia and taught at several colleges.

Much of George's work has been published, either in its own right or as part of a larger piece. His contribution to photographers does not stop there. He has combined his majors to produce two Adobe Photoshop plug-ins, to wide acclaim.

George also enjoys playing the banjo.

Fordie: Why are you returning to China?

George: I have studied Chinese landscape painting for 25 years. Other than Western styles of landscape representation, the Chinese paintings, especially from the Southern Sung Dynasty, had a unique structure unknown to the rest of the world. I am returning to China to visit the various landscapes that inspired these painters.

Fordie: Do you feel there is anything special about China as a destination for photographers as compared to other photo venues around the world?

George: Again, it is the special relationship that China has with its landscape and the representation of it that interests me the most.

Fordie: Your workshop will start in Jishou and then work towards Zhangjiajie. Do you see it as having two halves, two different kinds of photography?

George: I do. We intentionally made this a workshop that would include people in the landscape in the places represented in traditional Chinese landscape paintings.

Fordie: The towns and villages that you will visit are largely populated by Tujia and Miao ethnic minorities. Will you be photographing the people or only the landscapes they live in?

George: Both.

Fordie: It is hard to get totally away from the influence of the modern world. Is this likely to be an issue with the images you aim to capture?

George: No. The biggest problem, really, is translating the structure of the ancient Chinese landscapes into a photographic one. I have been working on this problem for 25 years, and have worked out most of its details. Students will get a lecture and demonstration each day on how all this is transferred from painting to photography.

Fordie: I believe you have training as a painter. Can you tell us more about that part of your personal history, and how and why you made the transition to photography?

George: I have been drawing since I was a child. My formal photography education began in 1966 at the University of North Carolina and continued through graduate school at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I then studied with some of the great photographers of the 20th Century: Minor White, Ansel Adams, Gene Smith, and Marie Cosindas. My painting and sculpting education came from two years study at the Rocky Mountain School of Art in Denver. So, the transition was more of an inclusion of painting and sculpture rather than the photography being an extension of it. The painting improved my photography 10-fold.

Fordie: How does a painter’s interpretation of a scene differ from a photographer’s interpretation of the same scene? Does one inform the other?

George: Painters paint what they see. Photographers see something, take a photograph, and have to manipulate the image afterward. A painter has time to put things down as the human perceptual system works. A photographer can only manipulate the retinal image minus the perceptual processing that the brain does. The greatest photographers can manipulate a photograph like the processing stage of the painter. My feeling is that painting informs photography.

Fordie: The kinds of landscapes the workshop group will see in and around Zhangjiajie are very reminiscent of traditional Chinese landscape scroll paintings. Is that important to your approach to photography?

George: It is most certainly. We will be in an area that many of the ancient Chinese landscape painters visited and get to see their “inspiration.”

Fordie: Which is more important – the initial capture of a scene, or the subsequent work up of the file using post-capture software? How important is the latter in the images you choose to share with the world?

George: Because of the nature of the photograph, post processing is necessary. Photographers have to adjust the image to make it appear as they saw and felt it, and this often requires extensive manipulation in Lightroom, Photoshop and other image processing software.

Fordie: Is there any preparation that participants should do before arrival in China?

George: Lydia and I have a bibliography that I will include with this interview that should help them understand about Chinese landscape painting and its influence from the Tao.

The Bibliography is reproduced below

Fordie: What will participants learn from their workshop with you and Lydia?

George: We will examine the structure of ancient Chinese landscape painting in some detail and give the participants exercises to help them translate this ancient structure into photographs. All of these information and skill is the basic for what Lydia and I now call Contemplative Photography. It combines both form and spirit, and we show the path to practice this.

Fordie: Will the weather conditions affect the way you present the workshop and, if so, what weather conditions would you prefer?

George: The type of weather that presents the right type of atmosphere for the type of photography we want is usually misty and mysterious. Photographing in the rain is okay and participants should be prepared for it. We will also doe some dawn and dusk photography

Fordie: I understand you are planning some personal travel in China following the workshop. What do you hope to see?

George: We would like to scout out other places that the ancient Chinese painters visited, like the Yangshuo and Huangshan areas. We plan to explore mountains primarily, but also want to visit the famous rice terraces and other areas conducive to the specific type of photography we are trying to accomplish – which is to imitate both the vertical and horizontal scrolls of , primarily, the Southern Sung Dynasty.

Cheng, Francois. Empty and Full: The language of Chinese painting. Shambala.1994

Rowley, George. Principles of Chinese Painting . Princeton. Princeton Univ. Press. 1970

Tse, Mai-mai. The Tao of Painting. (2 vols). Bollingen.1963

Tse, Mai-mai. The Way of Chinese Painting: Its ideas and techniques. Random House, 1959. This is an abridged edition of the Tao of Painting, but it contains Mai-mai Tse’s full essay on Chinese painting. Paperback. The Bolingen version is very rare and costs in the hundreds of dollars.

Anh-Huong and Thich Nhat Hahn. Walking Meditation. (with CD and DVD) Boulder, Sounds True. 2006

Hahn, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness. Bpstn, Beacon Press. 1999

Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. Pantheon. 1971.

Lao Tsu. Tao Te Ching. (translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English) New York, Vintage Books. 1989.

Thomas Merton, The Way of Chung Tzu. Shambhala, 1992.