GARY FREEBURG

Gary Freeburg was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota,  and was raised there. After serving in Vietnam in the U.S. Navy,  Freeburg received three degrees in photography: his B.F.A. and M.A. from Minnesota State University at Mankato in 1974 and 1977 and his M.F.A.  from the University of Iowa in 1978. He lived and worked in Alaska for  twenty-five years and served as a professor of art at the University of  Alaska's Kenai Peninsula College, where he directed the art program and  served as the curator in the campus art gallery that now bears his name.  He is professor emeritus of art and past director of The Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art at James Madison University. Freeburg has been with and studied under renowned  photographers and educators, such as Ansel Adams, Oliver Gagliani, and  John Schulze and his photographs have been exhibited nationally and  appeared in Under Northern Lights, Writers and Artists View the Alaskan Landscape and Looking North (University of Washington Press, 1998; 2000). He has received an  Individual Artist Fellowship Grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts, Anchorage; an honorary degree for his contribution to the visual  arts from Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage; and an Art Educator of  the Year Award in Higher Education from the Alaska Art Education  Association. He was recognized by the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education for his art advocacy work in Alaska and Washington, DC, and a documentary film by George C. Johnson, An Artist's Journey to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes: The Photography of Gary Freeburg, reflects his work in the volcanic wilderness. Freeburg is the author of The Valley of 10,000 Smokes; Revisiting the Alaskan Sublime, a book published in 2012; and the forthcoming book, A Hard Walk through Solitude; Living Among Alaska's Volcanoes, featuring drawings, photographs, and stories by Gary Freeburg.

Most black and white photographs from the  Valley of 10,000 Smokes and Aniakchak Volcano were made with two Fuji  6cm x 9cm cameras and Kodak 120mm, T-Max 100 film. The cameras were held  steady by a Leitz Tiltall tripod. A UV filter was used to protect the  lens from volcanic dust and to block UV light, and a K2 yellow filter  was occasionally used to give “value separation” between cloud  formations and a blue sky. A hand-held Pentax Spotmatic V light meter  helped to determine the exposure and eventual negative. The film was developed using Kodak D-76 developer, diluted to one-part solution to  one-part water, and negatives were washed and fixed using Kodak Rapid  Fix solution. Negatives were then scanned using an Epson Perfection V700  photo scanner and files of scanned images were sent to a 27 inch iMac  computer using an Adobe Photoshop application. Photographic prints were  created using an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printer with pigment inks.

All  color images were taken with a Nikon D800 using a prime lens. In  addition, a Nikon D300 was used as a backup camera and the lenses of  both cameras were protected from volcanic dust by UV filters. Image  files were downloaded from the cameras into the computer using the Adobe  Photoshop application and in the case of black and white photographs  from Aniakchak Volcano, changes were made from color to black and white  in the software application. The images were printed using an Epson  Stylus Pro 7900 Printer with pigment inks. All images were printed using  Illford Gallerie Prestige Gold Fibre Silk paper. Image sizes are 6 x 9  inches, 10 x 15 inches and 20 x 30 inches.

All drawings were created on 22 x 30 inch Rives BFK White 280 gram paper using Lyra 1772 graphite sticks.