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The Beginning of Gregory RademacherWhile Greg Rademacher was growing up in Minnesota, another "master of the lens" had already been acknowledged in California. Phillip Charis pioneered techniques of photographic artistry combined with stretch canvas techniques that brought the rich and famous to his studio in Pasadena. His work had earned his name by the time Greg Rademacher went shopping for his first 35mm camera. Charis seemed to have little in common with an apprentice Minnesota photographer who was 30 years his junior. In fact, it took over 12 years for their first meeting to occur, but when it did, they would find something in one another that would spark an enduring personal and professional relationship. It was in 1975 when Rademacher first saw the Charis style. "I was struck by the three dimensional quality and the stretch canvas techniques," he remembers. "I had never seen anyone do work like that." He was determined to produce work like that himself. Determined is something that Greg Rademacher appears to have been all his life. It may even have been the quality recognized by Phillip Charis which set Greg aside from so many others who have attempted to duplicate the Charis Touch. Rademacher's love affair with the camera began in Brainerd, Minnesota at the end of a rural driveway. It was there that an eagle perched one day, still for so long that Greg remembers it was as if the scene was inviting capture of film. But there was no film. That's when the campaign for the first 35mm camera began. While other teenage boys were buying cars, Greg was camera shopping. Financed by after school jobs, he finally managed his first camera purchase only to learn that would be the least of his expenses. He learned as he went, but the learning was producing a roll of film a day. As each roll was developed, Greg says "I figured out what I did wrong." His training, he admits, moved slowly because it was financed on a shoestring, teenage income. "I had little money," he says. With growing expertise, he became more addicted, but not satisfied. "In those days, one out of 36 was nice- today it would hardly be acceptable." He went on to Brainerd Community College where he had access to a darkroom and a photography class, and now the dye was cast. Resisting parental pressure to go on to a "real job", Greg knew he had to pursue photography. For months, he carried a picture of a $1,200 camera, "the kind I'm going to have someday." "In those days, that was the price of a car," he remembers. Continue The Story of Gregory Rademacher... |