“The digital camera is a light capturing device. Digital tools help me create images that, at their best, suspend reality and prepare the mind to perceive an object in a different way. Ironically, these modern tools allow me to in some ways, emulate the effects of the lenses, films and developing processes of previous generations of photographers. My pursuit is of the transcendent print, the arresting image, the point beyond time.”
–J. E. Knubis

Jess Ellis Knubis has spent his life in the arts. As a child he displayed a keen interest in music and began a professional career as a guitarist at the age of 14. Living in Los Angeles in the early ’70s, it was a good time for musicians. The atmosphere was rich with singer-songwriters looking for sidemen, entertainers needing back-up bands and session producers recording all over town.

In the early ‘80s, Jess and his wife Gabriela moved to the Monterey Peninsula where music took a back seat to a thriving advertising/public relations company they started together. The creative work of graphic design, copy writing and photography proved to be as artistically satisfying as music.

On the Monterey Peninsula, Jess was exposed to the world of commercial photography working as an art director for the firm’s clients, were primarily luxury resorts, food and wine events, restaurants, chefs and wineries. Before long, Jess had a camera of his own and was working alongside the photographers he hired, learning every trick and technique he could. His primary mentor was Larry Dale Gordon, the master of 35mm commercial and travel photography. The camera and photographic images always played an important part in Jess’ creative work, his design sensibilities dictating strong graphic images, his musical training providing harmony and rhythm. Jess’ photos began to appear in advertising in dozens of major travel and lifestyle magazines as well as in client brochures and on web sites.

Perhaps most important to the development of his photography was his exposure to the illustrious group of fine art photographers and painters who had for decades made a home on the Monterey Peninsula. A primary client, Highlands Inn, initiated gallery-quality photo exhibits in its vast Fireside Room. There for years, virtually in the shadow of Edward Weston’s home and less than a mile from the home of Ansel Adams, some of the most important works in the world of photography by the great pantheon of West Coast photographers were regularly exhibited; Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Ruth Bernhard, Cole Weston, Rod Dresser, John Sexton, Brad Cole, Tom Millea, Henry Gilpin and many others. It gave Jess an insight into the world of fine art photography, and the difference between a good photo and a work of art.

In 1997, while continuing with their advertising/public relations business, Jess and Gabriela bought a small, run-down farm in Napa Valley and spent the next several years refurbishing the buildings and planting a Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard, the fruit of which goes into the award-winning wines of Caymus Vineyards.

Finding a rich source of inspiration in the year-round beauty of the Napa Valley, Jess seriously began pursuing the art of the digital photographic print. “It’s much like the darkroom and color lab of previous generations,” he says of his current digital work, “I have the tools at hand to modify images, not to distort or exaggerate but to create on paper what the eye sees and the mind perceives.”

“The digital camera is a light capturing device. Digital tools help me create images that, at their best, suspend reality and prepare the mind to perceive an object in a different way. Ironically, these modern tools allow me to in some ways, emulate the effects of the lenses, films and developing processes of previous generations of photographers. My pursuit is of the transcendent print, the arresting image, the point beyond time.”

Jess prints proofs and final images in his studio, using archival inks and highest quality papers. Display prints are made by Dickerman Prints of San Francisco and are Type “C” Chromogenic prints on Fuji Crustal Archive paper. All images are framed using acid-free materials and traditional gallery mounting techniques.

For a sampling of Jess’ recent music, please visit www.knubismusic.com

J E Knubis Photo Image
jess@knubisphotoimage(dot)com
707 265 7783
3286 Silverado Trail
Napa, CA 94558

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