About

A Sense of the Place
​​​​​​​This collection of photographs is about natural places, especially those where the place itself carries an implication of stillness. If I am successful the photographs present suggestions of a quiet importance more than might be recognized at first glance, suggestions of a world outside the frame, perhaps a sense of time which proceeds independently of our own fate.  The feeling of the place, a sense of it, is what I seek in my photographs.   
"All of my pictures are optically very accurate–I use pretty good lenses–but they are quite unrealistic in terms of values. A more realistic simple snapshot captures the image but misses everything else. I want a picture to reflect not only the forms but what I had seen and felt at the moment of exposure."
—Ansel Adams
As for me, I am barely a photographer.  I don't do weddings, news, travel, portraits,  sports or commercial work although I admire those who do.  I like getting off the pavement in natural places with my camera seeking the "something else" that Adams famously identified.  The photos here were taken around the western US but most of them were made fairly close to home. Many of the photos you see here were taken on daily walks not far from my house. Quite a few were taken within earshot of roads, some of them tiny islands in seas of human progress. 
I had a long career in water systems contracting and teaching. Now that the professional stuff is over I indulge my lifelong love of photography and enjoy being an amateur, meaning I work for the love of it, not for the money.
Charlie Judson
Sebastopol, California
January 2024
In his book, The Memory of Place, author Dylan Trigg suggests there are Places which are fundamental to our sense of self and Non-Places which are not. Places are those with meaning, shaped by our individual history, and could include our home, our parents' home, church, possibly our workplace, and importantly, places we go for inspiration and happiness. Non-Places are the opposite and don't have meaning. They tend to the homogenous and are interchangeable, like airports, supermarkets, the DMV. 
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