About the Photographer: Michael Smith-Heimer, PhD

 

Michael Smith-Heimer started to take photographs during his first year of college, when he was studying city planning.  His professor said "Go see the world and figure out how cities work, through the lens of a camera."  Michael did, and soon discovered Ansel Adams and the zone system.  He perfected this black and white film technique over the next several years, while traveling throughout the western US.  Several of his images received juried awards and were publshed. 

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When personal computers were invented, Michael became an early adopter; he even was a technical reviewer for some of the first issues of PC World.  But his passion for photography and the digital world did not converge for many years.  He continued to use film, gradually moving into cibachrome color images.

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As digital cameras and printers improved, Michael began to experment with digital images.  Along the way, he found that combining images into a seamless panorama could open up the landscape, showing "slices of life" in an expansive format. 

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He and his family have come full circle, with a home on the Sonoma coast in an area where Ansel Adams used to roam and shoot.  Although Michael has been a practicing city planner and professor for more than 30 years, his first love is making images, especially of the western US.