Carl Toothman
Free-lance Photo-artist
Professional Information
Carl
Toothman
Free-lance Photo-artist
Education, Honors & Awards
3 yrs. Santa Monica City College
Culture Prize Sodertalje, Sweden 1974
Personal Information
Sweden
Halmstad
none
Astronomy, UFO Studies
Short history of my love affair with photography as an art I remember to this day how I approached my father and asked him if I could buy a 12 dollar, plastic Kodak Brownie Box Camera. Ihad to ask his permission to buy any articles with my allowance money. Iwas so happy when he approved! And that was the start of a long love affairwith photography. I started photographing my brothers and sisters,....my friends in theneighborhood and occasionally a trip to some workplace or garden tophotograph any eye catching view. I joined the camera club of my high school. We all photographed studentactivities. I even had some of my photographs published in the school'syear book. Photography fascinated me very much. The idea that I could"catch" a view that I was seeing in the view finder of a camera and thenlater see the finished picture, was such a profound experience.Something of a time machine that could visually carry me back to a specialmoment,..especially a beautiful moment. In the spirit of the trueartist,..I was able to catch the moment forever. I was 16 when I purchased my first camera and one year later I purchased a"real" camera. It was a Yashica. A Japanese copy of the famous GermanRolleiflex twin lens camera. What pure delight to look through the viewfinder, searching for a beautiful moment to catch. Better than goingfishing. No hook was needed to catch an image,..just a nimble finger and ahair triggered intuition to follow the feelings that were passing in view.All I had to do was wait for the "right moment". The moment that would bestsum up the feelings of that present moment in life. The feelings of aperson,....the beautiful arrangement of some flowers delicately hangingon,....the design of a bridge,...the outline of a tree in silhouette during abeautiful sunset,...the reflection of dancing diamonds on the shoreline of abeach,...the grace of a bird in flight,...the joys,..the tears,..theexpressions of tender love a child expresses for the mother or father,..thecompassion of a mother soothing a crying child. There was so much thatcould be "caught on film",...to be preserved forever. Photography willalways be the best method for an artist to record in detail,...the story oflife,...with instant flicks of a finger,...rather than the traditionalartistic method of the past, where an individual spent weeks, perhaps monthsconstructing with oil paint, lead pencil or water colors, an accurate recordof the reality taking place in front of the beholder. Photography recordsand captures life,..at the speed of light, allowing you to paint with lightthe fleeting moment,...gone in reality,..but captured for posterity. I studied photography at Santa Monica City College, California in1961-63. I started that very same semester to exhibit a few photographs inthe school library and then tried other localities. Photo shops, schools,coffee houses, libraries, a hospital, an airplane factory,restaurants,...just about any free wall space was good enough for mypictures. In this fashion my photographs became quite popular among the young in theBay Area of Los Angeles during the years 1962-67. I exhibited at UCLA, SanDiego College, Los Angeles Photo Center, The Unicorn Theater (La Jolla), TheInsomniac Coffee House (Hermosa Beach), The Ashgrove (Hollywood), and theLos Angeles City Hall. I saturated the area with my pictures. Once when I traveled to New York with some of my friends to pick up a prizethat I won In Rochester, New York,..I was able to get a feel of New York.It wasn't a "love at first sight" situation. New York was another worldwhich made me feel uncomfortable. The fast talking hectic way of life didnot suit my temperament. It was simply too slick for my existentialist wayof life. But I realized that I had to expand, to spread my work physically,I had to change my "campaign grounds",.....I was already famous in SouthernCalifornia and would no longer be "news" for any media coverage of myexhibitions. The L.A. Times covered my City Hall exhibition in 1964, and I understoodthat I would no longer be "news" for another 5 or 10 years. So I had tomake a big change,...to avoid stagnation. Since I wrote off N.Y. City as mynext "campaign grounds",..I thought the typical thing to do, would be totravel to Europe, to do as most artists do,...who are thinking "big".Paris was the place to be. The West Bank was the scene to do. But itturned out to be Sweden by pure coincidence. And there I've been living as a"permanent tourist" for the past 30 years now. When I moved to Sweden, the first nine months I spent in Stockholm,.....moving from acquaintance to acquaintance. I had to "hitthe road", had to move 12 times! It was rough during this time. I somehowwith the passage of time, managed to put together a collection of myphotographs to start exhibiting again. I was doing an average of one exhibition a month,...for a run of more than3 years and then when I wasawarded the city's Cultural Award, I received the distinction of being a"recognized artist". The wording for the prize read....."For helping to advance photography as an art". Only once have I been "invited" to hold an exhibition, and that was inCalifornia, back in 1965. Most of the time I had to go out huntingexhibition space for my pictures. And certain places that were free ofcharge,...like libraries,...were now, no longer free of charge. I quickly lost interest in exhibiting. I just couldn't afford to exhibitthe way I used to. After all the years of exhibiting,...doing more than 85one-man-shows, I now felt I was stamping the ground,..getting nowhere fast. It wasn't until I purchased a computer that I found a new way to share,to show my work to the general public. Internet is a new beginning.Now I have a "gallery" of my own,..open 24 hours a day,..everyday of the week. Carl ToothmanMy homepage is cloned http://www.geocities.com/toothowlhttp://www.halland.net/~carl
exhibiting photo-art, Photo-art
Websites & Social
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