After retiring from teaching seven years ago, photographer Don Schwartz bought a digital camera and a handful of lenses as a gift to himself. During the ensuing years, he has moved from dabbling in photography to a far more focused effort to capture the magnificence of the landscape that surrounds his home and the places to which he has been fortunate enough to travel.
For Schwartz, photography is a dance with nature. It is the immersion in a landscape and the sense of being lost in the moment, where the passing of time goes unnoticed. It is the serendipity of capturing a moment in time that becomes a timeless moment.
His work has been recognized for its compositional elements. He seeks to bring out the essence of his subject whether it may be through a gentle softness or a dramatic brilliance. He loves shooting subjects that evoke a powerful mood through his work in both black and white and color. His photographs are currently on display at the Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery and online at the Trillium Gallery, based in Saugerties, New York. He has previously exhibited his photographs at Art on Broadway in Beaverton, Oregon, and The Center for Visual Arts in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Several of Schwartz’s images have received recognition. His images Limned in Light and Farmhouse in the Waves of Light were awarded blue ribbons at the Lake Oswego Oregon Festival of the Arts Open Show, and his photographs Morning Snow in the Garden, Heavenly Falls Serenity, and Garden Mist have been chosen for inclusion in the Portland Japanese Garden 2016 Calendar. Pensively Waiting for the Dalai Lama was featured in a recent edition of Photography Masterclass magazine, and his photograph Undulations will appear in an upcoming edition. He has also attended workshops the past two springs with well-regarded Pacific Northwest photographer David Cobb.
