Stan Ullner is Seabrook Island’s Photographer of the Month for May. Examples of his work will be on display during the entire month in the Lake House.
Stan graduated from The Ohio State University College of Dentistry in 1967 and served two years of active duty at Parris Island, SC as a Navy Dental Officer. He then returned to Ohio to private practice and married his wife, Carol. They have three daughters and eight grandchildren.
Stan has been actively involved in photography since high school, where he worked on the school newspaper. He started on a press camera with sheet film, then moved on to 35mm and large format. He was introduced to a Leica Camera eighteen years ago which forced him to slow down and think. This took him back to the press camera days where he shot a football game with eight shots and would then contact print the result.
“While I was a good technician, I couldn’t call myself an artist at this point,” says Stan. “The turning point for me was entering a Leica sponsored class in NYC with Ralph Gibson. I started to look at light with a more discerning eye and to explore what I was able to see. The hardest part was trying to define my own style”.
Stan and Carol moved to Seabrook Island ten years ago and met some wonderful people through photography and all the other activities available here. He now mostly shoots digital, but his main camera is still a Leica and he processes the images using mostly Adobe Lightroom. He prints his own images on archival fine art paper as it reminds him of the darkroom days where he could have complete control of the final product.
Street and travel photography are his favorite subjects for which to take pictures. Stan notes “I am comfortable ‘working’ a street almost anywhere in the world due to my past experiences with people, as a practitioner, and selling at retail stores while in school”.
Stan enjoys passing on the knowledge he has in photography and has given talks at the Seabrook Camera Club and The Charleston Art Guild.
Visit Stan’s website; stanfordullner.com to see the many awards and recognitions he has received over the years.
—Marty Cline