Trentonians looking for a walk in the woods need only to hike over to the New Jersey State Museum, where the exhibition “Preserving the Pinelands: Albert Horner’s Portraits of a National Treasure” is on view through June 28.
With about 1.1 million acres or 22 percent of New Jersey’s land mass, the forest is the largest open space area between Boston and Richmond.
“For the last 14 years I have almost exclusively photographed the New Jersey Pinelands,” says the Medford-based Horner. “I realized the intuitive photographer photographs where they live or lives where they photograph.”
That revelation hit him after several photography excursions to Europe and the American West brought little satisfaction in terms of photos taken.
“I spent a lot of my life (in the Pinelands),” he says. “It was my area of exploration since I was able to drive. So I’m familiar with its central core. And I know the right spot to go at the right time.”
He also made another choice. “I reduced my expectations and look for only 12 successful, printable photographs per year.”
That, he says, comes from his approach. “When I take a photograph, I have the image in my head of what it is going to look like on the wall. So if it meets my criteria, I take the photo.”
Since he uses a digital camera, he also thinks beyond the lens. “I know before I take the photo what I can do in (Adobe) Photoshop. Not that it’s magic; Photoshop isn’t going to make a good photo. But I can control shadows and highlights. So I preconceive the image.”
But, to be clear, he says his main intent is “to create exactly what I see.” And what he looks for is a combination of stillness, air, light, and water.
To get the right photo he says he uses his “gut feeling” to get something that “looks like the Pinelands. Something that evokes an emotion to me, (something that) makes it attractive and beautiful.”
He is also guided by his habits and preferences. He photographs only in the morning so there is mist that will make colors more luminous. The air must be still because he uses long exposures, so windy and rainy days won’t work. And the equipment must be capable and quality dependable: He uses only Canon cameras, Zeiss lenses, and Epson printers.
Horner says he has not always lived so close to the Pines. He was born in 1946 in Riverside, New Jersey. With a salesman father living in Florida, he was brought up by his mother who made sure they were rooted to nearby communities and institutions.
His early experience with the Pinelands was when he spent time at a boyhood friend’s cottage on Lake Atsion. There, he says, he learned to smell the air.
After being drafted and serving in Europe, getting married, and working with a vehicle rental service, he moved to another Pinelands town, Medford, and started a sporting goods store.
He eventually sold the shop and became a representative for a national fishing line distributor.
He says he had an interest in photography when he was in his 20s, and someone gave him a film camera. He became so interested he built his own darkroom.
Then family, work, and a move to a smaller house pushed photography to the back of his mind until retirement enabled him to pick up a camera again. “I decided to build a digital darkroom and jumped into digital photography,” he says.
Since then he has amassed a strong collection of Pinelands images, saying “I have 150 images I would be proud to print and hang anywhere.” Or as a Courier Post newspaper article put it, images that are “Picture-perfect Pinelands.”
“It is all self-taught,” he says about his images. “The greatest lesson I had is an incredible library of coffee table photography books — people form Europe and us photographers. It gives you an understanding of how things can be done — how to use light and composition. I don’t imitate them, but I use them as stimulus.”
The result has been his own book, Pinelands: New Jersey’s Suburban Wilderness, published by Schiffer Publishing; and various exhibitions, including one at the D&R Greenway in Princeton. He is also on demand for talks regarding his work and the Pinelands.
The New Jersey State Museum exhibition — featuring nearly 40 of his works — started when he had his book sent to museum director Margaret O’Reilly.
“I really wanted to get an exhibit at the State Museum because (the Pinelands) is a Jersey thing and important to the state,” he says.
Preserving the Pinelands: Albert Horner’s Portraits of a National Treasure, New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street. Through June 28. Tuesdays through Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Free, donations requested. 609-292-5420.
Albert Horner’s photographs of the New Jersey Pinelands, including “Mullica Bend Basin,” are on view at the State Museum through June 28.,
