Biography

Biography

Born in Watsonville, California, and raised in Carmel, Rod Dresser had an early exposure to the art and artists of the Monterey Peninsula. Upon graduation from Carmel High School he attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and went on to serve in the Navy for over thirty years.
Rod became interested in photography after his retirement; he built a darkroom in his home and attended a course at Monterey Peninsula College. Through a happy set of circumstances he met Ansel Adams and was eventually asked to serve on his staff as a Special Assistant. Rod had the unique privilege to work with Ansel and print off of the master's negatives for the year prior to Adams' death in 1984. He continued to work at the Adams studio as a photographic assistant until 1987.

That year he left for San Francisco where he began to take commercial photographic commissions. Among his clients were Apple Computer, Shaklee Corporation, University of California, Harvard University, Union Bank, UTA Airlines and others. Jordan Vineyard and Winery commissioned him to do a book for the winery, which was given an award for outstanding design and photography. Rod is presently working on a photographic book for the Pine Ridge Winery.

Rod returned to the Monterey Peninsula in 1991 to become business manager for the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. In 1995 he left the Trust and has devoted himself to fine art photography. Rod has been involved in various workshop programs including Salisbury State University, Salisbury, Maryland, The Friends of Photography, Calumet Photographic, Osaka Art Institute, Japan, Freestyle Photographic, and his own workshops.

Rod's photographs are in major collections and museums nationally, including Los Angeles County Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Fine Arts, Monterey Museum of Fine Arts, Osaka art Institute, Museum of Art in Nanao, Japan as well as in Europe and Japan. He is represented by galleries in Taos, New Mexico; San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Tokyo, Japan and the Weston Gallery in Carmel. Rod has had one-man shows in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Longview and Austin, Texas.

He has had three one-man shows in Carmel and his work was exhibited along with Ansel Adams in a photographic exhibition in Tokyo.

While Rod usually seeks the landscape as his subject matter, his interpretation has become increasingly abstract, driven by an affinity for both simplicity and texture. Much of his work is done in his studio, where he explores the details of such subjects as flowers and structured light. This has resulted in a vision that approaches minimalism. As he matured as a photographer, he found that the images do not have to be literal or immediately recognizable; but convey the artist's feelings and emotions. Tranquility and form are evident in Rod's images and he feels that the black and white medium best depicts his art.