Postcard from San Jose

Welcome to the library on the campus of San Jose State, my alma mater. If you recall from previous posts, I visited the campus with my camera last summer when I was in the Bay Area. It’s always interesting to return to one’s college or university after so much time has passed.

The official name of the library is the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. This library did not exist when I went to school there, but it does sit on the same site as the library I knew and loved all those years ago. I thought that library at the time was the biggest one I had ever seen. I remember getting lost in the stacks a couple of times. Ah, the innocence and ignorance of youth!

This photo was shot looking almost straight up from the entry lobby. I just love how the lines converge from the left and right into the center area of each floor…and how that area has its own shapes within shapes and its own set of intersecting lines.

Of course, black and white is the only good choice here as it’s the lines and shapes that count, not the color. I think that is true for about 90% of the architectural photos I make.

Believe it or not, I got my jump start in photography here at San Jose State. Although I was a journalism major, I took one required class in photography. That got me hooked! I wound up taking every photography class they offered and was even a student assistant for a short time.

I think the advantage I may have over most over today’s crop of photographers is the countless hours I spent in the darkroom working mostly in black and white. Photography is both a craft and an art form…it may be the only art form that uses both sides of the brain.

The work I did at SJSU prepared me for the digital darkroom I use today…and all those classes gave me a start point to become a creative photographer…to see with my heart and soul, and to see the final composed image before I even snapped the shutter. Maybe it’s fitting that I took this photo at my university and processed it in black and white…a kind of tribute to all I learned there.

I loved photography as an art form back then and still do today. What a good feeling that is.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com