Artist Bio
Walter Swift had no thoughts of becoming a photographer until an aerial photographer for the State of Washington told Swift that he had an "eye" for photography and should seriously consider it as a career choice.
Yet, it took another trip to Washington State with another friend, one with a masters degree in photography, for Swift to become totally captivated with photography. Upon his return, Swift enrolled in the Photojournalism program at Pierce Junior College in Woodland Hills, California. He also started freelancing at the Newhall Signal newspaper. After completing the journalism program at Pierce, Swift then became an editorial photographer for some of the largest companies in the Santa Clarita Valley.
He learned to become an event and portrait photographer while on the job. From there, it was a natural leap to wedding photography.
- Portraiture.
Artist Statement-Fine Art
My mission: to create unique art, either portraiture or fine art, that clients would be proud to show on their walls.
I studied fine art photography with David Skernick, (davidskernick.com), in the early 1990’s. Skernick, a former student of Ansel Adams, taught me how to shoot fine art using 35mm color slide film. One abstract image of mine won "Best of Show" in the Santa Clarita Artist Association Art Classic of 1999. Since then, I have been drawn more and more towards abstract photography. I now create one-of-a-kind, long, single exposure images, in camera. These images do not exist in front of the lens, but are created on the camera sensor while hand holding and intentionally moving the camera against light patterns. Call it a dance of intentional steps, but with a camera in-hand. I then download the images into LightRoom where I proceed to crop and paint them. The images, themselves, are completely drawn-out thoughts. So, rarely do I need to go into Photoshop to fix anything. Happily, I have found a way of combining my love of photography with my love of drawing and painting.