Awards & honors recipients: PSA's 2002 progress medal honoree John Shaw

PSA Journal, Oct, 2002 by C.W. Biedel

John Shaw has been an ardent camera hobbyist ever since his parents gave him an Argus C-3 in junior high school. During his last year of college, he bought a Nikon F and the SLR made him realize the full potential of his photography. Totally self-taught, he sold a package of pictures to National Wildlife while still in graduate school. After graduating with a BA in philosophy and a Masters degree in American literature and comparative religion, he taught for two years at the University of Wisconsin and another two at Western Michigan University and wasn't happy as a college instructor. He was single, didn't have any mortgages, so he decided it was a good time to try his hand as a freelance nature photographer. That was 1971 and he has never looked back and has never done anything except nature photography.

In the early 1970s he teamed with a friend each summer to give week-long nature photography workshops that were a novel idea in that era and were successful. Disappointed with the photographic texts that told readers what to do, but not how to do it, he began writing his own explicit how-to nature photography books. The publishers considered them unmarketable--a fact he reminded them of when, finally on the market, the sales of his first book reached 500,000 copies.

John says, "If I were told to take a vacation I would do exactly what I do for a living. I know I am truly blessed to be able to say that."

John's and his wife live in the countryside just north of Colorado Springs.

By Dr. C. W. Biedel, FPSA, Chairman, Progress Medal Committee

Statement of Acceptance:

I sincerely thank the Photographic Society of America for the honor in presenting me the Progress Medal Award for 2002. It is certainly gratifying to be recognized by PSA for my work as a photographer, teacher, and author.

I've said it many times, but I'll say it again: to be a better nature photographer you need to be a better naturalist. I see far too many photographers whose only desire is to win points in competitions or to have their pictures published, rather than developing an interest in the subject matter itself. Many times in the field I've had equipment-laden photographers come over to me, point at a subject, and ask what they had photographed since they had no knowledge about it. In my mind, nature itself--its beauty, its diversity, its infinite complexity--is what we should first contemplate, and then we should take our photographs to show these attitudes to others. Points and publishing are far secondary.

I can thank my parents for instilling in me a love of nature at an early age. I grew up in western Pennsylvania where my parents had purchased an old farm north of Pittsburgh. Both my father, an engineer, and my mother, a school teacher, were extremely "outdoorsy" people and wanted what they considered to be the benefits of rural life. Thanks to them I was in kid heaven: forests to explore, streams and wetlands to investigate, hills to climb. On summer vacations we would drive for days to visit far away National Parks. In passing I might mention that my earliest memory in life is of our camping in Yellowstone when I was about three years old. I trust that today, with our sprawling suburbia and materialist lifestyles, we as adults can still offer our children what my parents offered me. I would challenge all of us, parents and grandparents, to make all effort to do so.

When I was in junior high school I received my first camera and I've been photographing ever since. With my first good interchangeable lens SLR, a new world opened up and I was hooked more than ever. I read every book available on taking pictures, but not much was written specific to nature photography. So I enrolled in the "trial and error" school of learning about how to photograph. I made every mistake possible: opening the camera back before rewinding, not checking depth of field, shooting with no film in the camera ... you name it, I did it. To quote the late Dudley Moore, "I learned from my mistakes and could repeat them exactly."

Over time I learned my craft and eventually plunged into freelancing as a professional nature photographer. I continued to try to hone my technique, all the while amazed that I could find so little written material that was of any help. For example, I would read books that said, "In such-and-such situation, use flash." Well, I knew that I needed to use flash in that situation, but exactly how did one go about doing so? Or the book would suggest, "carefully determine your exposure" without ever telling me just how I was supposed to determine any exposure, nevermind doing so carefully. One book I read spent the first three chapters on the history of nature photography--interesting perhaps, but of no help to me in making better photographs. I came to realize that there must be other photographers in the same situation as I--wanting specific how-to information, but frustrated by the lack of that exact information. So I decided to write a book.

My proposal made the rounds of the New York publishing houses. I was turned down by several, including Amphoto (my eventual publisher) who wrote back to tell me that not only were they not interested, but that they thought my book idea was unmarketable. Months later they asked to see the proposal again and admitted that perhaps the editor who had responded earlier was too abrupt in his judgment. I hate to admit this, but I still have that original rejection letter from Amphoto--I enclosed a copy of it with a rather pointed note when my first book went past 500,000 copies sold.