Doug Wahlsten

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biography

All of the colour slides taken before the digital era were scanned recently, and the colour quality and resolution are excellent. Add these to images acquired during the digital era, starting with the Canon G2 and moving to a 5D, and a substantial collection of photos has accumulated. 

Meanwhile, I became a scientist in the field of genetic neuroscience, where we used a variety of technical photographic methods in our work, including micro- and macrophotography, darkfield fluorescence imaging, electron microscopy, video image analysis, and video tracking of live animals. 

In the pre-digital era, it was extremely difficult to obtain a good print of colour images. This situation has now changed dramatically with the introduction of new software and amazing inkjet and laser colour printers. At last it is possible to make prints that express well the details and colours of the original images. 

After moving to Salt Spring Island in 2012, I met several people with expertise in this domain who have kindly helped to make large prints from the best images.

where to see or read more

shows: Doug Wahlsten will be showing photos at the Salt Spring Gallery of Fine Arts in a two-person show Intimate with painter Heidi Van Impe, October 11-26, 2013

documents: Doug Wahlsten has prepared a number of fascinating and useful papers on A series on methods pertaining to photography has recently been completed. Each topic was organized into a PowerPoint slide show and then exported as a pdf with web resolution to make it compact. Certain of the topics also provide utility programs in Excel format to do calculations. Files are in PDF format unless stated otherwise. click here to have a look at these.

contact the artist

email: wahlsten2@gmail.com

artist statement

My practice over many years has been to always keep a camera nearby to capture special moments of great beauty, whether they are found on a trip to a national park or simply in the back yard. Thus, most photos were spontaneous, unplanned occasions. 

I was fortunate to have many good opportunities present themselves, such as the time in North Carolina when an adult cougar walked at very close range and posed proudly, or sunrise at a normally drab rest area on the interstate highway in Nebraska after an ice storm that coated everything in thick ice and made it sparkle. 

The most intriguing photos reveal fine details of nature that can only be seen when one looks closely at a scene for a long time. Those kinds of images need to be printed quite large in order to see the elements of beauty permeating a scene. As one looks ever closer at a subject, the image becomes more like an abstract work of art. 

The limitless artistic creativity of nature is both fascinating and inspiring. Now and then we are lucky to capture it in a photographic image.

Doug Wahlsten - photographer, scientist

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