From working at Ford Motor Co. to Blue Cross Blue Shield three separate times, DeWitt photographer Richard Johnson has had more than 20 different jobs — and hated each one.
Although Johnson received a political science degree from the University of Michigan and eventually went on to work with computers at a variety of companies, he said he has been doing music and photography since the early 1950s.
Johnson’s final photography exhibit, which opened last weekend, will be on display until Nov. 29 at the East Lansing Public Art Gallery at Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road.
“I’m an artist and also kind of an idealist,” said Johnson, who has captured and showcased his photographs of Michigan’s landscape for more than 50 years. “I love writing (computer) programs, but I didn’t always enjoy being around the people I worked with all the time. I was never cut out to be a business man.”
Johnson said he would travel to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and spend an entire weekend hiking and taking photographs but didn’t pursue a career in photography because he wanted to be able to financially support his family.
“I knew I couldn’t support my family and do all this creative stuff, so I got it started and then had to put it aside,” Johnson said.
Since receiving his first camera, an Argus C3, in 1952, Johnson said he began taking landscape photographs while growing up in Saline, and he has continued to take photographs of Michigan’s landscape while working with various companies.
“(Photography) is about pointing the camera and making a picture out of something that most people wouldn’t even see,” Johnson said. “I’ve taken hundreds of thousands of pictures, and I can count the good ones on my hands.”
Johnson has captured the natural landscapes of Hawaii to Utah on film, but he said Michigan, especially the Upper Peninsula, continues to be where he captures some of his best photographs.
“People look at my pictures of the Pictured Rocks and say it looks like the Bahamas because (the water) reflects so much green,” Johnson said. “They tell me ‘That picture can’t be from the Upper Peninsula. There aren’t any icebergs.’”
For Johnson, displaying collections of his photographs at local art galleries allows him an opportunity to interact with the people who come to see his work.
“People will come up to me and ask where the place (in my photograph is),” Johnson said. “People will say, ‘This reminds me of 50 years ago’ and I say ‘That’s because it was taken 50 years ago.’”
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