Bio: Charles Cramer studied piano for 20 years, receiving an M.A. from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. This conservatory was endowed by George Eastman, who also founded the Eastman Kodak Company. This connection between music and photography can be seen in the lives of many photographers. Cramer gradually turned to full-time photography by 1980. He continues to play the piano, however, and has presented recitals at the homes of photographer Don Worth, and in 1985 for Mrs. Ansel Adams. Ansel Adams regarded the negative as the "score", and the print as the "performance". Being very concerned with "performing" led Cramer to become involved with one of the most complicated methods of making color prints---the dye transfer process.

 

A dye transfer print, with its startling depth and brilliance, has long been considered among the finest methods of color reproduction. Since it is also one of the most time-consuming and costly methods, it is rarely seen today. Cramer labored mightily with dye transfer for 16 years, and is recognized as a master printer.In 1997, he began emerging from the darkroom to sit in front of a large, color-calibrated monitor. This new digital process involves scanning the transparency, using Photoshop as a digital darkroom, and writing the final image to chromogenic photographic paper at very high resolution with red, green, and blue lasers. Although far removed from darkroom-intensive dye transfer, this process also gives him incredible control over the final image. These new advances allow Charles Cramer to realize his lyrical landscape images at their strongest and most compelling.
Photographs by Charles Cramer are available through fine photographic galleries throughout the West. He has also taught various photography classes for the Ansel Adams Gallery Workshops. In 1987 he was selected by the National Park Service to be an Artist-in-Residence in Yosemite. Charles Cramer's landscape work has been published by National Geographic, Sierra Club, and the Yosemite Association, which used his images exclusively for their 1994 Yosemite Calendar. He has written for Photo Techniques Magazine, and was recently profiled in the March/April 1995 View Camera Magazine. His most recent work stems from his fascination with the color, mood, and spirit of the Southwest.