Photography without a camera. Incongruous, maybe. Impossible! Not to Ed Martin. Throughout his career as a cinematographer, his ability to stretch the muscles of his imagination has led to the creation of his unique images.Upon retiring in 1993, he returned to his first love, still photography. He set up a darkroom in his home & began to experiment with a variety of techniques. One of them was to create a photographic image without the use of a camera or film . Just plants & flowers were placed into his enlarger, projected onto Cibachrome paper and later on film, exposed & then processed. Ed's portraits range from modern day psychedelic - a strange look he achieves by shooting reflections of people in warped mirrorized mylar, to weird split images. All of these techniques can be seen in Martin's work.
This kind of man-made magic has defined Ed's career. As a cinematographer, he would hang by his feet for a shot, invent rigs & go to just about any length to get the perfect shot. It is his eye for perfection that made him a two-time winner of the prestigious CLIO award for the Best Cinematography for two of the memorable IBM "Charlie Chaplain" commercials, "Skates" and "Hats". But his most fulfilling experience in motion picture photography was a film he worked on in 1956 with director/producer Louis Clyde Stoumen, about still photography. This academy award nominated documentary was entitled "The Naked Eye". He traveled from coast to coast & had the privilege of filming people whose talents he'd long admired: Alfred Eisenstadt, Weegee, Margaret Bourke White. But the highlight of this project was the opportunity to meet & film Edward Weston at his home in Carmel, CA. Ed has remained friends with the Weston family to this day.
Ed returned to Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula many times to film commercials and it's unique landscape. While filming the spectacular vistas of the area, Ed & his wife Sandy purchased a home there & have divided their time between Carmel and Los Angeles for over 30 years.