Reply To: Welcome New Members

May 11, 2022 at 10:15 pm #2985
Steve Muench
Moderator

    Steve Muench*, your Competition Chair

    Me - self

    *How Do You Pronounce “MUENCH”?

    By Karl Muench, M.D. [my uncle]

    “Muenches get the question often: how do we pronounce our name? …As a non-speaker of German, I must improvise. My personal answer is, “Minch, rhymes with pinch!”

    For the story of how the pronunciation changed an election, see: https://www.muenchfamilyassociation.com/pronunciation-story.html

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    About me:

    First given a 1904 Brownie box camera in 2nd grade (1962) by my maternal grandmother, and later doing darkroom processing for my junior-high & high school yearbooks, I also did the 16mm filming of my high-school football games, which really developed my eye as the camera had to track the ball no matter where the action went.

    During my career as a self-educated, self-employed computer technical architect, I only did occasional photos & videos. It was Xmas 2008 when I got my first serious camera: a Canon 5D MkII with 5 lenses.

    I am inspired and humbled by 3 photographic greats to whom I’m related: Josef Muench, his son David**, and David’s son Marc (different branch, same ancestral lineage), and endeavor to evolve my own unique style, while growing to achieve equivalent standards of excellence.

    My SRPS history coming soon…

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    **About David Muench and his photographic influence:

    In describing David Muench’s photography, it has been said that David Muench is to color photography as Ansel Adams is to black & white…

    …(See From: https://www.rwongphoto.com/gallery/top-10-influential-nature-photographers-alltime/ )

    …and...

    From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_muench :

    “His first Arizona Highways cover was published in January 1955 at the age of 18,[3] and he has continued to work with the magazine since then.[4] In December 2015, to celebrate seven decades of collaboration, Arizona Highways dedicated an entire issue of the magazine to Muench, the first time they had done so for a single person.[5]

    At the recommendation of Ansel Adams, more than 200 images by [David] Muench are archived in the collection of the Center for Creative Photography.[6] 

         http://ccp-emuseum.catnet.arizona.edu/view/people/asitem/M/56?t:state:flow=5c57a12c-982e-40d9-a0cb-faddf84a9b65

    Although he has done a few exhibits,[7] [David] Muench chose the coffee table book as the main vehicle for his photography.

     [David] Muench’s classic work consists mostly of wild landscapes photographed with a 4×5 film camera. His signature compositional technique is the near-far wide-angle view where a carefully selected foreground ties in with the background.[12][13] He also paid particular attention to the “timeless moments”, times of transition such as sunrise, sunsets, and the edge of storms.[14][15] Other innovations in landscape photography include the use of telephoto lenses, fill light and in-camera double exposures.[16]”

    Discovered in the SRPS stuff at LBA&GC are several David Muench coffee table books. I am very thankful to be receiving them as we close out our history at LBA&GC.