45 Facts About Ray McSavaney

Ray McSavaney was an American fine-art photographer based in Los Angeles, California.

Ray McSavaney died from lymphoma in Los Angeles Veteran's Hospital.

Ray McSavaney started college at USC but soon transferred to UCLA, from where he graduated in 1963, majoring in art with an emphasis in Design.

Ray McSavaney continually expanded his basic skills through college classes, photography workshops with the experts, assiduous reading, and intensive self-study.

Sometime in the early 70s, still employed by Hughes but increasingly interested in photography, Ray McSavaney enrolled in an Ansel Adams photography workshop, soon delving into the art and practice of classical black and white Western landscape photography.

Ray McSavaney worked at getting a feel for its immediate environment and interrelationships among its elements.

Ray McSavaney discovered that subtle relationships become clear when presented in a 'context' of several complementary photographs of the same or equivalent subjects.

Wisely stating that it was only a means to an end, a viewpoint that Ray McSavaney quickly adopted, he advocated using it with awareness of its limitations and with its utility.

In working on those unusually contrasty scenes, Ray McSavaney soon discovered that his photographic skills were grossly inadequate.

Ray McSavaney was challenged by the technical pitfalls presented by scenes with extreme luminance ranges.

Ray McSavaney was among the many fine art photographers of the time who viewed remnants from earlier ages, such as the Tire Factory, the Ancient Puebloan ruins, and Los Angeles bridges, as 'Forgotten Places'.

Inspecting the vast Bunker Hill construction site, Ray McSavaney was struck by what he knew was its inevitable impending sterility.

However, while it was being built, Ray McSavaney was attracted to the ongoing construction, the emerging new buildings, and the continual changes as the vast job progressed.

Ray McSavaney soon realized that accidental arrangements and juxtapositions among the construction tools and materials created unplanned but sometimes visually pleasing compositions.

Consequently, in order to make an expressive print, Ray McSavaney faced the need to 'open' shadows and 'compress' highs into ranges that the film could handle, and enable him to make an expressive print.

Ray McSavaney's techniques are well summarized in photography magazine interviews.

Ray McSavaney recounts walking through Yosemite meadows in misty early mornings looking for the right combination of light, subject, and surroundings for an expressive photograph.

Unlike his mentor Adams who, forty years earlier, reportedly made similar explorations of Yosemite Valley accompanied only by his burro, Ray McSavaney walked through it accompanied only by his camera.

Ray McSavaney recounts driving past an eye-catching river scene "hundreds of times" but not at a time that he could photograph it to his satisfaction.

Less than a decade later, after honing his skills on the urban Uniroyal Tire Factory and Bunker Hills Redevelopment series, Ray McSavaney began to show Yosemite in its more dramatic moods, one of which appears in the accompanying example.

Well into his professional career, Ray McSavaney increasingly realized that he had to convey his own meaning in a photograph before it could evoke a kindred emotional response in the viewer.

One writer, assessing his growing artistic confidence, noted that Ray McSavaney had "a natural eye for finding uncommon beauty in unexpected places".

From boyhood tours with his parents, Ray McSavaney knew of the spectacular scenery and native people of the American Southwest.

Ray McSavaney was attracted to the rich Hispanic colonial heritage of churches and shrines, especially the iconic Mission Church of Ranchos de Taos and the contemporary Southwest Hopi, Pueblo, and Navajo people.

Almost every year, beginning in the early 80's, Ray McSavaney had a Southwest photography workshop, at first with the OVPW, later with his own program.

Ray McSavaney produced work of a quality that far superseded that of most Southwest photographers working in the black and white medium.

Ray McSavaney expressed his talent for drama in the accompanying photograph of the Barrier Canyon Style anthropomorph rock art.

Ray McSavaney had a unique ability to see the unified whole - the rock structures and colors, their multitude of forms and textures, the matrix as it were, into which the ancient builders had incorporated their own vision of the world.

At times Ray McSavaney combined his search for suitable floral materials in the downtown Los Angeles flower market with a photography workshop at his studio.

For some Southwest subjects, Ray McSavaney frequently resorted to high key printing.

Ray McSavaney well knew that their differing insights and viewpoints would enrich his students' experiences.

Invariably, Ray McSavaney encouraged his students to seek out other sources of instruction.

Ray McSavaney especially recommended the many programs offered by the Friends of Photography.

Ray McSavaney provides a graphic example of Adams representing the performance of the musical concert from the score.

Ray McSavaney had created several developer recipes for his Tire Factory and Bunker Hills work and, as time went by, applied them in his landscape and Southwest photography.

Carefully and meticulously handwritten on 4x5 cards, Ray McSavaney's printing notes are archived with his negatives.

When planning a photograph in the field, as if stalking his subject enacting Philip Hyde's motivation that "somewhere in this picture there's a photograph", Ray McSavaney preferred to first inspect it from different locations and angles.

Ray McSavaney would take care of any tonal dissonances later in the darkroom.

Ray McSavaney's preferred equipment was a lightweight wood field camera with a variety of lenses.

Ray McSavaney was a very careful photographer, sparing no effort, always with the final print in mind.

Ray McSavaney practiced Adams' dictum, that analogous to orchestral music, the negative is merely the score whereas the print is the concert performance.

Ray McSavaney discusses some of those printing techniques in his book.

Ray McSavaney well knew Adams' wry observation on the occasional necessity for the fine art landscape photographer to use drastic exposure and processing techniques.

Briefly, after making preliminary proofs to evaluate the possibilities of his negative, Ray McSavaney decided the degree, if any, that he needed to alter it to achieve the final tonalities he wanted, and the print paper, developer, and toner to achieve them.

Ray McSavaney died in West Los Angeles Veteran's Hospital in July 2014.