STAN JORSTAD, PHOTOGRAPHER 

Written by June Grayson 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It isn't easy to become a great landscape photographer. How often have you marveled at the beauty of the world around you? You whip out your 35 mm. autofocus camera to capture your favorite scenes and wait impatiently for the prints to be developed. Then disappointment sets in. Reality has nothing to do with the lifeless images you somehow captured at those rapturous moments.  

Stan Jorstad, St. Charles photographer, does landscape photography - although his finished prints probably have little in common with yours. Yet, when you see his work, you have to say, "Aha, this is how it really was in that glorious place." 

For 35 years Mr. Jorstad has financed his expeditions forlandscape photography from his earnings as a commercial photographer. No gifts or government grants subsidized his work. Now at the pinnacle of artistic power and technological skill, he is poised to reap the rewards of such singular vision.  

Catch the current exhibit at the National Center of Photography in Paris, France, before May 31st. This "Panoramas of the Panoramas: a Retrospective of Panoramic Photography"  

features 200 of the world's greatest panoramic photographers of all time. Mr. Jorstad has five prints in the show.  

From July 18th to September 16th, The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, in cooperation with the United States National Park Service, will sponsor a one-man show featuring 45 of Mr. Jorstad's fine art prints taken in the national parks. More than one million people are expected to view this exhibit entitled "In Celebration Of Our National Parks: The 75th Diamond Anniversary Of The National Park Service."  

After that, Safety-Kleen Corporation, the environmentally-concerned multi-national company with corporate headquarters in Elgin, Illinois, will sponsor a five-year traveling exhibit of his panoramic color prints throughout the national parks.  

Such recognition may make Mr. Jorstad an American hero and national treasure. 

Panoramic cameras are specially designed to photograph wide landscape views and large groups of people. Mr. Jorstad uses an 89-year-old Cirkut camera which exposes a full 360 degree field, or any part thereof, on a single long strip of film. (The natural vision of the human eye encompasses 90 degrees). "We turned this venerable antique into a versatile and modern camera by replacing its wind-up spring motor with two electric motors to run at different speeds with its three different lenses," he says. He also likes the Japanese Fugi panoramic camera and sometimes uses an 8x10" Deardorff camera on location.  

Mr. Jorstad develops his film in his commercial photography studio, Photomark Corporation, established in 1979 in Carol Stream. "You have to do your own printing so the image will come out exactly the way you remember seeing it," Mr. Jorstad explains.  

Mr. Jorstad is no stranger to professional acclaim. During his forty years of experience in studio, location, and fine art photography, he has received well over 50 national awards fromhis peers for excellence in photography, art, and design.  

You may have seen his commercial photography without knowing it in the magazine advertisements and annual reports he does for America's foremost corporations. The Shedd Aquarium of Chicago chose his "Nautilus" fine art poster to typify its cultural mission. An exhibit sponsored by Waste Management Corporation at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry features a 42 foot long and 10 foot high enlargement of one of his images.  

Television viewers of "Wild Kingdom" with Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler saw Mr. Jorstad's location photography in segments oneagles, falcons, otters, bats, giant anteaters and the Lincoln Park Zoo.  

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Batavia, Illinois, has held two shows featuring Mr. Jorstad's work, so Fox Valley residents have already had a tantalizing preview of this year's exhibits.  

Where does Mr. Jorstad derive the discipline to achieve his self-assigned goals? Perhaps it comes down through the genes of his sturdy Norwegian ancestors. In fact, his traveling companions on location sometimes call him that "tough old mountain goat" as he outclimbs and outcarries them through the roughest terrain.  

His father, an advanced amateur photographer, gave him hisfirst camera, an Ansco, when he was ten. He still has it ondisplay in his studio museum.  

Yet Mr. Jorstad, a trumpet player in high school, majored in music his first two years at Temple University. "Music, art, photography, and design are all creative arts requiring the same aptitudes and talents," Mr. Jorstad thinks. (Another Americanphotographer, Ansel Adams, was a pianist before he switched to photography). 

When World War II erupted, Mr. Jorstad, a fine skier and jumper, volunteered for the United States Army's 10th Mountain Division. "Every college ski team in the country joined enmasse," he remembers. "Our division was reputed to have the highest average IQ in the entire US army."  

These more than ten thousand men fought on skis in the mountains of northern Italy while carrying their 24-hour survival gear and ammunition on their backs. Their legendary exploits, including the destruction of ten German divisions of which two were panzer (tank) divisions, are credited with taking Italy out of the war and mortally wounding the German Army.  

An 88 mm. artillery shell which wrecked his left shoulder onlysidelined him for six weeks. After the war ended, it was home for more schooling on the GI bill at the Ray School of Photography, Chicago, and a 25-year-long career as Director of Photography at Container Corporation of America, Carol Stream.  

Soft of speech but tough of mind and body, this 69-year-old photographer still has his goals. He reaches for a well-thumbed directory of the United States' National Parks. "There are morethan 200 national parks. So far, I have only visited 69 of them," he says.  

He is counting on his fiercely loyal four-member studio family (two of whom are his own children) to assume his professional responsibilities so that he can concentrate on his fine art photography.  

Meanwhile, he and Wanda Jorstad, his wife of 44 years, continue to call St. Charles home. "Why not?" asks Mr. Jorstad. "Living next door to O'Hare Airport keeps me in touch with the whole world."  

 

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