Martos Hoffman
I might be characterized as a vagabond for beauty. My entire life has been consumed by seeking out natural places where humankind has had little to no impact.
Much to the chagrin of my parents, starting at age five, I would go on adventures that would take me miles into the sandstone canyons accessible from my backyard–always with my square Brownie camera. By my early teens, having proved that I would not die in the wilderness, I started backpacking to even more distant and untouched landscapes, always with a camera. I could reach the edges of big wilderness areas and then hike into some of the most untouched landscapes in the West once I was able to drive. Wanting to somehow bring a tangible part of the sense and experience of the place back with me, I began seriously looking at the landscape as a photographic artist and have never wavered from this pursuit.
Even though I’ve explored a lot of amazing places over the course of my life, I still experience each new place with the freshness of a young child’s perspective.
I have been known to get up at 3 AM and hike miles in the dark to get to a special spot in order to catch the first glow of light across the landscape. Sometimes I sit in one spot for hours watching the changing light paint the landscape.
I am a Flagstaff based photographer who seeks to create images that enable people to appreciate the profound beauty of the natural world. Throughout my photography career I have worked to capture dramatic images of untouched immense landscapes as well as the beauty of the more intimate, small pieces of the natural world.
Biography
I’ve been obsessed with photography since my early childhood, when I watched images magically appear on paper in my older brother’s darkroom. Motivated by this experience, combined with the fact that I lived in a natural rural environment in southwestern Wyoming, I began photographing nature as a child at age five.
Much to the chagrin of my parents, I would go on adventures that took me miles into the sandstone canyons accessible from my backyard—always with my square Brownie camera. By my early teens, having proved that I would not die in the wilderness, I started backpacking to even more distant and untouched landscapes, always with a camera. Once I could drive, I was able to reach the edges of big wilderness areas and hike into some of the most untouched landscapes in the West. Wanting to somehow bring a tangible sense and experience of the place back with me, I began seriously looking at the landscape as a photographic artist and have never wavered from this pursuit.
During my first couple decades as a photographer, I captured representational images of expansive landscape scenes, having been influenced by the f/64 group of photographers. Over the past 25 years, my photography has become more interpretive, expressive, and metaphorical. While my attention is nearly always drawn to natural places, I have found—especially over the past five years, since I retired from university teaching and began focusing all my attention on photography—that I’ve become more attentive to smaller, often unnoticed pieces of nature rather than large landscape views. This transition/evolution/progression in my photographic art has been concurrent with my consciously spending more time within a given place, which in turn has enabled me to become more cognitively and spiritually connected to place, and has opened new ways of expression.
The recent rise of political and social disdain for the natural world has catalyzed my attention to making art that raises people’s awareness of the importance of nature in our physical and metaphysical lives.
I am a Flagstaff based photographer who seeks to create images that enable people to appreciate the profound beauty of the natural world.