Close Window

All of us (especially we who strive as artists) assume a variety of personae to get by. Roger Fremier has collected more than a few. Teacher, photographic artist, author, workshop director, businessman - and those are just the ones on the first page.

Roger is never far from teaching. He is a natural passer-on of information. After stints at the University of California at Berkeley, San Jose Community College, DeAnza Community College, Foothill Community College, College of the Redwoods, University of Arizona, and University of California at Santa Cruz, he has settled (for the present time at least) at Monterey Peninsula College as the head of the Photography Department.

Workshops, like the ones he does in coordination with his friend Henry Gilpin, are another manifestation of his urge to teach. Besides the heaps of photographic expertise the two bring with them, the bonus part of a Fremier/Gilpin workshop is hearing them tell stories about the famous and infamous photographers they have known over the past thirty years. An important part of any art is the history of its artists.

Then there is Roger Fremier, the businessman. He is the owner of Photographs II Studio. He has served as a technical consultant to Alta Photographic Inc. and he was co-producer (with Hewlett-Packard) of a three-hour video about Phil Davis and his approach to photography. Mr. Fremier is also the founder of The Photographic Center of Monterey Peninsula where he served as its first Director.

The Fremier Style
In some of Fremier's images it is hard not to consider him as an Ansel Adams disciple. Maybe not a slavish imitator as are so many who trek the hinterlands, large format cameras akimbo; nonetheless, a number of Fremier images have the Adams flavor: Mt. Tom, Sierras, 1996 and, to a lesser degree, the Garrapata Beach CA, 1986. But Fremier's images suggest involvement with the subject.

The differentiating quality about Fremier's landscapes is the air of anticipation, a sense that something is going to happen, the stasis breaking or about to be broken. By contrast, neo-pantheist landscape photos typified by Adams, present a nature that is timeless and unchanging. For them, they are witnessing creation a process that cannot be entered.

It might be better to equate his tastes with that of Brett Weston's. In fact, Mr. Fremier loves Brett Weston's work. Photographs from both these men have that "human touch", that involvement with subject, that vitality and spontaneity that one might find missing in the cool precision of Adams and the f64 Group.