Very Sad News

It is with heavy heart that I morn the loss of one of photography’s greatest educators and inspiration. Michael Reichmann, founder of the Luminous Landscape, has died after a battle with cancer.

Michael and his Luminous Landscape website has been responsible for my earliest technical and aesthetic training as an artist. His insights and his clarity, not only technically but also his humanity, made reading his articles easy to understand. I learned through Michael’s website articles and forum about how the technical aspects of photography can free the artistic and compositional ideas we struggle to release as creators of vision. He also taught me one-on-one about the value of technical discipline.

He had a non-nonsense approach to image analysis. I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting my idol back in 2008 when I booked a Printing One-On-One workshop with him at his Toronto gallery. I purposely brought not all of my best work with me in the hopes of his personal help in my early days as an artist. The first thing he said to me when he looked at some of my images was, “What the @#$% were you thinking at shooting with such a high ISO in broad daylight!” We both laughed and then he immediately started his training with me. Boy, he’d had his work cut out for him! But I spent the rest of the day learning post-processing and printing techniques from the master himself. We had fun at lunch talking about his early days and his wonderful family. He met my wife, Jayne, at the hotel when he picked me up, and he was a very gracious host.

You can my original 2008 article about my visit here .

You can read the Luminous Landscape article here .

Michael, I will miss your selfless dedication to our photographic passion. Your genuine willingness to share knowledge without holding back was deeply appreciated. The world is a little more empty without you.