Most importantly, it is not fetishized, nor masked. I think this capacity really comes from within Brett, that it is perhaps studied, and honed, or maybe it is inadvertent. And such is how we farm, and how we live with nature. A balance between predictability and chaos. Skewed enough through framing, composition or frankly just the moment captured, that the mercurial undependable side of life is revealed through some cracks, apparent alongside the beautiful, stoic and dependable part of life. When Brett takes a picture, what is shown is a perfect shot, but somehow skewed. What I see with Brett’s work is the courage to show the beauty alongside the mercurial. Mother Nature is mercurial, and the great repository of all opposing forces, cohabitating. I think that has it’s place, but it is also misleading. Vineyards and harvest can be shot in a way that is boringly bucolic and self congratulatory. He has also returned to the ranch regularly to shoot houses, landscapes and people doing things. That was the year that Isabel was born, and Brett has made family portraits of us every year since then. I became friends with photographer Brett Walker in 2014 when he was in residency next door to my home, at Chalk Hill Artist Residency at Warnecke Ranch.

Artists who hold open the space between dualities have my rapt attention. You can emote on the subjects of his work with judgement, laughter and tears, and kid yourself that it’s about someone else, when in fact you know very well that it is about yourself, and every other human being. His photos toe the line between universal and personal in that aching way where you relate enough to feel empathy but have a safe distance to not feel overly implicated. He captured humanity with candid street shots from the 1930s to the end of the last century. My favorite photographer is Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Brett walker california