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ISRAEL REVEALED Discovering Mormon & Jewish Insights in the Holy Land by Daniel Rona photography by Don O. Thorpe |
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Don O. Thorpe |
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| Don O. Thorpe wanted to be a watercolor
painter and he attended several universities with that goal in mind. But
one summer he took an extended trip through Europe with a camera in his
hands, and that started his love affair with photography. His mother saw
one of his photographs and encouraged him to enter it in the Newspaper
National Snapshot contest in the Tribune. The photo won a national award,
and started Mr. Thorpe thinking about photography as an art form and perhaps
a career. Soon he was enrolled in several photography classes at the university,
and loading himself down with camera and darkroom equipment. He discovered
that Black and White photography was his passion, and he worked in that
format for many years, until the advent of digital computer software made
it possible for him to use enhancement techniques with color photographs.
Mr. Thorpe is unquestionably an Impressionist at heart. Feelings are at the center of the photographs he produces -- he prefers to call his images, photo-art. For him, technique is not as important as the impression of the image. Therefore, he is not a photographic purist, nor a precision obsessed photographer. The way the image is produced is not as important to him as how the image communicates and feels. He delights working with computers and the digital enhancement and image manipulation they offer. These allow him to reach into the variances of expression that were only available to an artist with a brush just a few years ago. Now he feels he can express some of his deepest feelings and spontaneous impressions. In this E-book you will find a mixture of conventional and digital photo-art images. All of which express Mr. Thorpe's feelings about life -- impressionistic images that come from the heart more than the camera. Don Thorpe has worked as a photographer
and writer in countries around the world, especially Europe and the Middle
East. His photographs have been published in many magazines and books,
including Camera 35, Modern Photography, The New Era and Ensign magazines.
He is the author of "Available Light Photography," a book published by
Watson-Guptill of New York. He has held over a half dozen one-man photo
exhibits, and has exhibited in The International Photography and Travel
Fair in the New York Coliseum, the Finch Lane Art Gallery, the Springville
Museum of Art, the Eccles Gallery
and others
Some of his photographic projects include an audiovisual presentation for the World Conference on Hunger, featuring the Tabernacle Choir, the six episode "Israel Revealed" video documentary which he co-produced with Daniel Rona in Israel -- and which aired on broadcast television -- and multi-media sequences for the acclaimed LDS stage productions: Saturday's Warrior, Starchild, City of Joseph, The Promised Valley, and the LDS sesquicentennial production of Zion. "As I have traveled the world over, I have learned to appreciate and love people from different countries and cultures, and I hope my photographs will help bring some of these people closer together, whatever their background." The photographic works published in the
book ISRAEL REVEALED are just a part of the thousands of photographs Don has
taken in Israel. Many of them are also featured in the ISRAEL REVEALED
video tapes.
All photographs © copyright 2010 Don O. Thorpe |
