Bob Kolbrener first experienced the work of Ansel Adams on a trip to California in 1968, and has spent his photographic career exploring the American west since then, often in national parks. Over the last 50 years, his work has been exhibited and collected internationally.READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Kolbrener considers Portrait of Half Dome, a 2006 image he made in Yosemite National Park, to be a vital component of his body of work. This striking image is a marriage of beauty, vision, timing, and skill. Kolbrener recounts the story behind the picture:

Portrait of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

“The moments leading up to this photograph are of value. We travel to Yosemite in the winter when major snowstorms are eminent. The snow was constant for two straight days. On the third afternoon, we had pulled off the road to make some popcorn, and I was out of our vehicle just for a minute or two when looking toward Half Dome I saw a slight glow at its base. As I literally ran back to our van, my wife, Sharon saw me in flight and had the Hasselblad case out as I was arriving. Grabbing the camera body and the 150mm lens along with the tripod, I set up the camera close to the truck as things started to clear. I then realized that the foreground trees were too high into the face of Half Dome. Clomping through the thick snow I retreated around 100 feet until the face was unobstructed. I made 7 exposures total – the last three with a red filter to darken the sky more and best reveal the rising fog. In a dramatic twist worthy of a play, within moments of my last exposure, the clouds closed the scene like a curtain after a fine performance!”

More than being a remarkable image, Portrait of Half Dome, asks the viewer and photographer, himself, to consider the question, “Is this beautiful image the result of just being at the right place at the right time?” Kolbrener replies, “This assertion places its value on mother nature and not on me. The artist must be able to respond in the moment. My window of opportunity was maybe 10 minutes.” Nature often presents a photographer with a beautiful scene, but composing all the elements of the scene in a striking arrangement with limited time is a mixture of experience, skill, and talent.

The introduction to his book, Kolbrener’s Yosemite, best sums up his thoughts on landscape photography. “I have always responded to the grand, ephemeral gestures of nature. When there is lightning, fog, or winter storm, I am alive with emotion. Through the teaching of Ansel Adams, I have been able to direct this energy to the making of exciting photographs.”

Kolbrener expanded on this thought in a recent interview, “I would like to contend that everything that I have learned, experienced, and photographed all come together when nature presents the opportunity. I believe that all great photographs, by serious photographers, strike a balance between vision and craft. With an abundance of one of these over the other, the result is unsatisfactory.”

Having vision is more than having a good eye, Kolbrener says. “Good vision is the culmination of who we are – which is our past, present, and accumulated aesthetics.”

Kolbrener was born and raised west of St. Louis, Missouri, on his family’s 70 acres of ponds, woods, and fields. They had no neighbors, and after school, he and his three brothers spent the hours till dinner romping and climbing or catching frogs and fish. “I have to think that this environment was a contribution to the love I have for the natural world which I still maintain. Far different from an urban existence where as an adult the person decides to be a photographer and then travels to Yosemite to make photographs,” he said recently in an interview.

Kolbrener attributes his love of the land to those early years spent in close proximity to the natural world. The land, itself, with its beauty and variety, was his orbit. Kolbrener contends that industrialization moves us away from an agrarian way of seeing the world. For example, many people think that food comes from a grocery store, he said. “The farther we get from the natural world; the more trouble we are in.”

More of Kolbrener’s work can be seen on his Lumière Artist Page.

February 6 – April 28, 2014

We are pleased to pass along information on the exhibition- Bob Kolbrener: In Real Time: Celebrating Fifty Years in Photography at the Monterey Museum of Art, Pacific Street location in Monterey California. This exhibition celebrates Bob’s expansive fifty-year adventure with photography, and includes both iconic images and some rarely seen works from all five decades of his career. Still using the time-honored methods of film and gelatin silver darkroom printing, Kolbrener explores the Western United States with his cameras, in pursuit of that exceptional moment and extraordinary vista.

A reception for the artist will take place on Friday, March 21 from 6 to 8 pm.
View The Monterey Museum’s web site for additional details.

More information on Bob’s work can be found on his Lumière artist page as well as the exhibition: Picturing the West.

July – September, 2010

Bob Kolbrener …noted photographer of the American West …launched an exhibition of his work with a talk at Lumière, Wednesday July 14th. This is the second in the series, Picturing the West.

His subjects …from landscapes to portraits …from symbols of man encroaching on nature to humorous signage …are all carefully and thoughtfully executed.

A show with Brett Weston in Los Angeles over 35 years ago launched his work. Since then, it has been exhibited throughout the United States as well as in Austria, China, Indonesia and Japan.

With photographs in numerous private and corporate collections …including Texaco, Polaroid, Southwestern Bell and A. G. Edwards …his images are also in collections at institutions such as the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Monterey Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art and Washington University.

Kolbrener began conducting workshops with Ansel Adams at Yosemite. In the quarter of a century since, he has continued teaching at other workshop venues in addition to serving as a guest lecturer at a number of universities and museums.

“Kolbrener stands apart because his photographs have a rare technical perfection—every print is ideal and masterful in light, tone, cropping and consistency.”  –  James D. Burke, Director, Saint Louis Art Museum

Show House Details:
April 17 – May 9, 2010
3639 Tuxedo Road
Atlanta, GA 30305

Complete information at:
Decorators’ Show House Web Site

Lumière is proud to participate in this, the 40th year of the Atlanta Symphony Associates Decorators’ Show House and Gardens. Working with Peace Design and Summerour Interiors, we are pleased to provide exceptional photography to enhance their extraordinary interior design.

Yvonne McFadden of Summerour interiors utilized two of Bob Kolbrener’s commanding landscapes in the “Young Gentleman’s Bedroom”.

Bill Peace and Hillary Linthicum of Peace Designs are working with the environmental portraiture of Arnold Newman and classic images from Alexander Rodchenko in the “Library”.

We encourage you to visit the Decorators’ Show House & Gardens before it closes on May 9, 2010. This year’s house showcases 28 of the finest interior and landscape designers in the Southeast at “Giverny” in a magnificent estate home with over four acres of spectacular gardens. It is one of the longest running show houses in the country. All proceeds benefit the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Learning Community.