Jānis Photographs
To Travel
Jānis tries to travel as a wide-eyed pilgrim on a journey with a deep purpose.
That purpose might be to create a table-top book on Chinese wineries for the Chinese, or a book revealing personal motivations of Oregon’s pioneer winemakers, or a commercial assignment, or plant a fruitful garden, or make tonight’s dinner, or to understand the myths, beliefs and archetypal dreams of Africa’s most remote tribes.
He needs every imaginable kind of vehicle to get there.
To Celebrate Life
Back in the unforgiving Kodachrome film days, when beginner Jānis finished his first feature assignment for the National Geographic kids magazine, he sent the unprocessed rolls to the publication’s lab. Before seeing any images, extremely anxious, beginner Jānis asked for honest feedback. The review was not the best. Maybe a C grade. And a small technical flaw prevented one of his shots from becoming the cover image.
Instead of feeling deflated, he ran to his wife Eddi all excited. The grizzled editor had spent hours teaching the beginner photographic lessons.
In the journey with ruts and potholes, find the blessings.
To Experience
In traveling, whether to foreign lands or just to the local bank, Jānis looks for what the wandering pilgrim-poet Basho called “a glimpse of the under-glimmer.” He’s looking to experience reality underneath stereotypes, misconceptions, and false news that prevent him from truly seeing other people, other cultures and other religions. Experience life from a different window.
Sometimes that means getting an ochre-butter facial treatment in from a Himba-tribe woman in Namibia.
To Create
Jānis’s lofty goal: to be a visual flute for Creator’s breath.
If you know Jānis, he’s fanatical about creating the best work he can. French-based Gourmand named him one of the top two wine photographers in North America. He has won arm-fulls of awards, including Gold Medal for Best Regional Book in North America and Best in the World from China. Not bad for a little local boy.
But watch out. With a Masters Degree in Drawing and Painting, he just might create images that don’t look like photographs.