Ep. # 201: David Maisel, Marin County (Bay Area)-based photographer, on moving West, the view from Muir Beach and photographing from the sky

Marin County-based photographer David Maisel talks about: Moving out to Marin County from New York in the early ‘90s, where he and his wife have remained ever since; how transformative the experience of being in Marin County has been, and changed his life for the better, and meanwhile, how much the area has changed, having become obscenely expensive; his 10-year period going back and forth between architecture and photography before committing to the latter; how he first got into photographing from the sky (via plane and helicopter) via his mentor Emmet Gowin, whom he assisted on a shoot above Mount St. Helens, and how he got hooked from those first Cesna flights, particularly by the “threatening” (stomach-in-your-throat) aspects of the experience; how he grappled with and came to reconcile with the environmental consequences of making his work – from the fuel used for flight shoots all the way through the ink the prints are printed on – as a necessary complicity to being a picture-maker, and how he came to recognize that ultimately, we can’t remain completely pure.

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