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| It was 40 years ago. 1967’s “Summer of Love” was unfolding in San Francisco, and New York photographer Richard Blair wanted in. So, accompanied by his girlfriend, he came West. The two 20-somethings had barely gotten off the plane before some freak offered to drive them to the Haight-Ashbury. Once they reached the Haight, someone else turned their pad over to the startled East Coasters. After a psychedelicized week at youth culture Ground Zero, they stuck out their thumbs and headed for Yosemite, where they spent two months backpacking, experiencing some of the state’s natural beauty. And so began a fascination with both the California counterculture and the state’s great outdoors that, all these years later, has resulted in “California Trip.” It’s a just-published 300-page book, overflowing with stunningly beautiful photographs; Blair and his partner/collaborator Kathleen Goodwin call it “the first leftwing coffee-table book on California.” “From the day I arrived here I knew I was going to do a book about California,” Blair said one recent afternoon, sipping from a mug of tea in the living room of the Inverness Ridge home he shares with Goodwin, a writer, photographer and painter. The duo, who met in and have been together since the mid-’70s, previously published “Point Reyes Visions” in 1999; Blair says it’s one of the most successful books to be independently published in the Bay Area. “My whole life I was shooting the pictures,” Blair continued. “You’re driving down Interstate 5, you see Harris Ranch, and you go ‘Wow, that’s unbelievable.’ You’ve got to get a shot of that because it’s industrial agriculture. “The best pictures have a lot of serendipity. They’re found. Photos are rarely created — I mean the great ones. You were there when something happened that was really unusual. A water main broke and there’s a giant geyser in the middle of the street. You can’t plan these things. The longer the time frame you work on a project, the better it’s going to be if you’re relying on chance.” Blair, who made Northern California his home in 1969, is a large, rotund man with a curly beard. He looks a bit like Jerry Garcia. He combines the no-nonsense business sense of a New Yorker with the laid-back “let’s groove” sensibility of West Marin. “California Trip,” Blair and Goodwin’s third self-published book, draws from a photo archive of tens of thousands of photographs taken during the past 40 years. There are powerful images from Blair’s ’60s hippie days, and others taken just this year. While the book contains a nearly overwhelming number of gorgeous nature photos, there are also photographs of urban life (San Francisco and Los Angeles), and big sections on what Blair and Goodwin call “The Culture of California” and “The Land Transformed.” Blair’s images of Point Lobos, Fern Canyon, Death Valley and Yosemite, for example, are some of the most soulful landscape photographs you’ll ever see. And in addition to writing many of the essays and other text, Goodwin contributes striking images, including some terrific photos of dancers participating in Carnival San Francisco. “The day was cold and dreary, and those dancers were very exhilarating to watch,” Goodwin recalled during a separate interview. “They were enjoying themselves so much; their costumes were magnificent, and they overcame the weather. I have always wanted to go to the carnival in Rio, and I felt I got a real taste of it.” Photographing California made Blair acutely aware of the environmental diversity here. “How different are Death Valley and the Redwoods, L.A. and the rural towns of California?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s like a whole world in a state.” “Having the experience of going to all those places and events has made my life much richer,” said Goodwin. “I love adventures and new experiences and doing research for the book provided plenty of both. It was important to me to share these experiences, so people would learn things they could do themselves. It was also important to write about my belief in freedom and personal responsibility, much of which I learned as a hippie.” While Blair took most of the photographs and Goodwin did most of the writing, Blair contributes an essay on hippie culture, as well as a page of introductory “notes.” “I have always thought that an important function of photography is social and political critique,” Blair writes. “These pages are a result of that belief. They are also an attempt to show another generation the way forward. I hope they, too, go on the road, Kerouac-style, exploring California, relishing the freedom of being nowhere in particular but the right spot nevertheless.” As the couple’s German shepherd, Eshowe (a Zulu word meaning the sound of the wind in the trees), settled at Blair’s feet, he said, “The book is ultimately about freedom. Human freedom is a real theme. What’s more free than to be backpacking in wilderness? I wanted to pass some of that on. “I was in Santa Barbara, and I photographed this guy and girl. I ran the photo in the book. These kids are lost. They work hard, and then on the weekend, where do they go? To a damn mall. What the fuck are they doing shopping? It’s much better to take a girl you love and go to Yosemite. Much better than shopping.” And what was it that actually brought Blair to California? “In 1969 my girlfriend dumped me, and it was time to start over. I think California is a place people go to escape to. A lot come here ’cause it wasn’t working out elsewhere. You can reinvent yourself in California.” Michael Goldberg This review and article first appeared in the West Marin Citizen on November 8th, 2007. Please read more by the author, write to him or see what he is doing, at these links: |
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