Wynn Bullock

Although he was tremendously excited about this work, it proved to be ahead of its time in terms of available resources to reproduce it, and it remained largely unknown for almost 50 years. In 2008, the family estate started making high-resolution scans of his original 35 mm Kodachrome slides, producing archivally stable prints, and exhibiting and publishing the imagery.

Along with Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind and Frederick Sommer, he became part of the founding group of photographers whose archives established the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in 1975. Bullock taught advanced photography courses at the Institute of Design in Chicago during Aaron Siskind's sabbatical and at San Francisco State College at the invitation of John Gutmann. He was a guest instructor for the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshops. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, he lectured widely, led photographic workshops, and participated in many seminars and symposia on various topics and issues in photography.

In the mid-1960s, frustrated by the limitations of color printing technology, Bullock returned to making black-and-white photographs, continuing to expand his vision to create innovative images that reflected his philosophical nature. Differentiating what he termed "reality", the visible and the known, from "existence", the underlying truth of things, he was ceaseless in his attempts to expand his own faculties of perception and understanding so he could come ever closer in his experiences to the essence of things. Finding the means to more fully evoke that essence was also a key part of his quest. Although he included several different alternative processes (extremely long time exposures, multiple images, up-side-down and negative printing) in his repertoire of techniques, each was always used in the service of symbolizing new ways of relating to and knowing the world. He wrote,

In the mid-1950s, Bullock's artistry came into the public spotlight when Edward Steichen chose two of his photographs to include in the 1955 The Family of Man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. At the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, his photograph "Let There Be Light," was voted the most popular of the show. The second, "Child in Forest," became one of the exhibition's most memorable images. By the end of that decade, his work was being featured in many exhibitions and publications worldwide.

A major turning point in Bullock's life as a creative photographer occurred in 1948, when he met Edward Weston. Inspired by the power and beauty of Weston's prints, he began to explore "straight photography" for himself. Throughout the decade of the 1950s, he devoted himself to developing his own vision, establishing deep, direct connections with nature. A lifelong learner, he also read widely in the areas of physics, general semantics, philosophy, psychology, eastern religion and art. Studying the work of such people as Albert Einstein, Korzybski, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, LaoTzu and Klee, he kept evolving his own dynamic system of principles and concepts that both reflected and nurtured his creative journey.

Remarried, and with a new daughter, Bullock traveled throughout California from 1945 to 1946, producing and selling postcard pictures while co-owning a commercial photographic business in Santa Maria. He also worked on developing a way to control the line effect of solarization for which he later was awarded two patents. In 1946, he settled with his family in Monterey, where he had obtained the photographic concession at the Fort Ord military base. He left the concession in 1959, but continued commercial free-lance work until 1968.

Bullock obtained patents in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain for a "Photographic Process for Producing Line Image" in the late 1940s. He was granted a second U.S. patent on the "Methods and Means for Matching Opposing Densities in Photographic Film" in the early 1950s. In 1957, he was honored with a medal from the Salon of International Photography and, throughout the 1960s, he received several awards from various professional photographic organizations. In 1968, Bullock became a trustee and chairman of the exhibition committee during the formative years of Friends of Photography in Carmel, California.

From 1938 to 1940, Bullock became deeply involved in exploring alternative processes such as solarization and bas relief. After graduation from Art Center, his experimental work was exhibited in one of L.A. County Museum's early solo photographic exhibitions. During the early 40s, he worked as a commercial photographer and then enlisted in the Army. Released from the military to photograph for the aircraft industry, he was first employed at Lockheed and then headed the photographic department of Connors-Joyce until the end of the war.

During the Great Depression of the early 1930s, Bullock stopped his European travels and settled in West Virginia to manage his first wife's family business interests. He stopped singing professionally, completed some pre-law courses at the state university, and continued to take photographs as a hobby. In 1938, he moved his family back to Los Angeles and enrolled in law school at the University of Southern California where his mother Georgia Bullock (California's first woman jurist) had studied law. Completely dissatisfied after a few weeks, he left USC and became a student of photography at the nearby Art Center School.

Bullock married Mary Elizabeth McCarty in 1925; the marriage ended in divorce, in 1941. They had two children: Mary Wynne (Mimi) (1930 ) and George (1935–1942). He married Edna Jeanette Earle in 1943 and they had two daughters: Barbara Ann (1945 ) and Lynne Marie (1953 ). Mimi, Edna, Barbara and Lynne each appear in images made during the 1950s. A year after Bullock died in 1975, Edna took up photography and enjoyed a twenty-year career as an artist before she died in 1997. Barbara formed collaborative relationships with both her parents during their lifetimes and has written extensively on their work.

Bullock took courses at Columbia University, 1925, and University of West Virginia, mid-1930s; attended and graduated from Art Center School in Los Angeles, 1938-1940. He was a lifelong student of philosophy, physics, general semantics, psychology, theology, spirituality and art.

Bullock was born in Chicago and raised in South Pasadena, California. As a boy, his passions were singing and athletics (football, baseball, swimming and tennis). After high school graduation, he moved to New York to pursue a musical career and was hired as a chorus member in Irving Berlin’s Music Box Revue. He occasionally sang the primary tenor role when headliner John Steele was unable to appear and then was given a major role with the Music Box Review Road Company. During the mid-1920s, he furthered his career in Europe, studying voice and giving concerts in France, Germany and Italy.

Wynn Bullock (April 18, 1902 – November 16, 1975) was an American photographer whose work is included in over 90 major museum collections around the world. He received substantial critical acclaim during his lifetime, published numerous books and is mentioned in all the standard histories of modern photography.