TITLE: Fruit 'n' Veg

A series of still-life photographs of fruit and vegetables. There is beauty (at least in my eyes) often in overlooked subjects. I found these food items fascinating and I hope you will too.

AUTHOR: Jonathan Bourla (New Zealand)

Jonathan Bourla is a fine art black & white photographer, living in Snells Beach, New Zealand.

Jonathan’s photographic journey started in his teenage years, but was resparked when his wife gave him a wonderful book of photographs by the Master Photographer Ansel Adams. Jonathan became inspired by Adams’ photographs and keen to learn from his teachings. He learnt Adams’ Zone System, a (difficult to grasp) method for controlling film exposure and development. He also learnt the use of a large format film view camera

In addition to Ansel Adams, Jonathan has also been greatly influenced by American photographer Howard Bond. In 1997 he travelled to America to attend a Howard Bond workshop. What he learnt there, plus the substantial reading material Howard provided, gave him the foundation for his own photography. Although Jonathan's techniques have changed over his career, from developing his large format film negatives in the darkroom and on to printing there, to an intermediate stage where he scanned the negatives and performed interpretational dodging and burning etc on the computer, to late 2022 when he changed to using two, relatively old, digital cameras.

Jonathan's photography has been widely published. He belongs to the Mahurangi Artist Network in New Zealand. He lives with his artist wife Julie and their mischievous little Jack Russell dog Winnie.