Steve Mangold

Steve Mangold Artist Statement

I began photographing in 1972 when I moved to California. My first pictures were of the flowers on my deck, and that subject has persisted over the years. Within four years, I was taking photos for companies that actually paid me, and that profession (as a location corporate/industrial photographer) was absorbing and interesting, helping me to learn about anaerobic milk packaging, tomato and olive canning, steel mills, chemical fertilizer plants and 10,000’ deep potash mines, hospitals and medical clinics, semiconductor fabs and many other industries.

I photographed and helped produce multi-image shows for product intros, national sales meetings and even “The Death-Rebirth Experience in LSD Psychotherapy.” I once shot every employee at Intel’s world headquarters and photographed all the researchers at the California Academy of Sciences. I photographed the rehearsals and production of the Mikado and the making of KPIX’s evening news for IBM’s global meeting on teamwork. My last job, in 1989, was a 10-day shoot in Washington state for Peterbilt trucks, a highlight of my career.

I continued to teach photo workshops in Yosemite, travel photography in Oaxaca for UC Santa Cruz and grey whale expeditions to Baja for various outfitters.

I never really showed my work in prints, loving instead the hot, sharp pictures of projected slides with as many as 21 projectors, linked by computers—pictures choreographed to sound.

All of these photos were taken with my iPhone 12 ProMax. I love to grow flowers, and I am fascinated by spirals in nature, hence the many roses here. I hope to buy a real digital camera soon, and I expect my nature subject matter will expand to landscapes, weather and wildlife.