Worth another LOOK

Rain fell from a slate-gray sky as a skiff plowed through choppy waters off the rocky coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

On board, world-renowned photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen scouted the shore for particularly picturesque sites. His ultimate goal whenever photographing wildlife is to capture not only the essence of the creatures, but that of their environment as well.

When the Nebraska native spotted a prominent rock outcropping near a bay called Knight Inlet, he saw near-perfection. Golden lichen covered the base of the rock, and the fog-shrouded backdrop of towering fir trees gave the scene an otherworldly appearance.

“I turned to the guide driving the boat and said, ‘You know, that would make a perfect picture with a bear on top that point of rock,’ ” Mangelsen said recently via telephone from his home in Jackson, Wyo.

“The guide laughed and said he had never seen a bear up there. We were in the area for a week, and on the last day I suggested we go back up the coast.

“Sure enough, there was a black bear, and it wandered up on top those rocks. It was one of those very serendipitous moments. Sometimes if you wish hard enough, things all come together.”

Mangelsen titled the photograph “Guardian of Knight Inlet.” It is one of his many banner-size wildlife photographs hanging from the trees along Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall.

The banners have become a popular tradition of LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, which opens Thursday and runs through Saturday. Since its inception in 2007 the annual event billed as “three days of peace, love and photography” has featured some of the world’s most famous and accomplished photographers.

LOOK3 refers to the centerpiece of the festival, which takes place on the stage of the Paramount Theater. On three consecutive evenings, an internationally acclaimed photographer is interviewed while examples of his or her work are projected onto the screen. Admission each evening is $35.

The legacy photographers participating in this year’s “Insight Conversations” are Sylvia Plachy, Martin Parr and Gilles Peress.

An exhibit of Plachy’s work is on display at McGuffey Art Center through June 28, Parr has an exhibit at Second Street Gallery through July 18, and the Peress exhibit is at Michie at Seventh through June 28.

Mangelsen will kick off this year’s activities with a pre-festival event on Wednesday evening at 7 in the Paramount Theater. He will talk about his more than 30 years in photography as he shares some of his favorite wildlife and landscape images he has taken from Africa to Antarctica. Admission is $10.

“I’m humbled by the company I will be in, and really honored to be invited to do the tree exhibit and the slide show of my work,” said Mangelsen, who has attended both previous festivals. “I’m not aware of anything in the world that’s like this festival.

“I don’t go to a lot of photo festivals — in fact, this is the only one I’ve been to in the last four years. But it attracts a remarkable group of photographers, and the friendly atmosphere and camaraderie between all the photographers make it a very special thing.

“I was invited to Nick’s [Nichols] backyard barbecues and slide shows early on. They were always interesting with good friends and photographers getting together, and this is like that.”

Michael “Nick” Nichols is the founder and co-executive director of LOOK3. The get-togethers Mangelsen alluded to have evolved into the festival.

For years, Nichols and his wife hosted the every-now-and-again events called “Hot Shots.” These wildly popular gatherings gave photographers from amateurs to masters the opportunity to show some of their favorite images to their peers in an informal setting.

Now, the popularity of the festival has led Nichols, co-director, Jessica Nagle and the festival’s board of advisors to take measures to ensure its long-term sustainability.

A major step in this direction is to take a breather every three years, the first coming in 2010.

“The festival has grown faster than we could have imagined,” said Nichols, a long-time Albemarle County resident and celebrated National Geographic wildlife photographer. “It’s in the hearts and minds of people around the world, and the vibe part of it is just off the chart.

“New York City started a photo festival at the same time we did, and nothing has happened. There’s one in Palm Springs, California — same deal. This is the one everybody wants to go to.

“This is the perfect town, and the perfect cultural setting for this kind of event. There is something about the energy we’re putting out that people are picking up on, and we’ve had the photography to back up what we’re doing.”

The downside of the success has been a relentless pace that has had to be maintained almost exclusively by volunteers, many of whom have demanding day jobs. Nichols said a hiatus every three years also will enable members of his “photographic tribe” who come from around the globe to attend the festival to replenish their travel coffers.

“If the festival becomes an elite thing, a trade show or about money, it totally defeats what we set out to do in the first place,” Nichols said. “And that is for my generation to pass along and share with the next generation of the photo community, as well as provide a very cool cultural event for Charlottesville.

“So we’ve intentionally kept ticket costs way down so people can afford it. Only a quarter of our revenue comes from ticket sales, and the rest of our support is from grants, sponsorships and a lot of fundraising.

“Because of all the help we’ve gotten, this still has the seed of my backyard gatherings, which has to do with the democracy of the imagery, the love of the image and all that. So I thank Charlottesville and all the people who have helped us do this from the bottom of my heart.”

Nagle has called the festival “an affair of the heart.” It certainly has been that for people like MaryAnne Golon, former director of photography at Time magazine and curator of this year’s festival.

The people who already have been selected as curators for upcoming festivals also all are major players in the world of photography. They include the director of photography at Fortune magazine, the director of photography at National Geographic and a high-level editor at Aperture.

These highly respected people should ensure the continuation of the remarkable lineups of talent the festival has become known for. Nichols said this year’s legacy photographers are about the most mischievous photographers on the scene today.

“What I mean by mischievous is they play with you with their images,” Nichols said. “When you see Sylvia she’ll probably have every kind of camera there is hanging around her neck.

“She’ll have a camera with two lenses, a plastic camera, a panoramic camera. Her photography is very ephemeral and eclectic — you never know what’s coming next.

“In that respect, she’s very much like somebody who fell in love with photography just for the sake of it.”

Nichols said he has absolutely no idea where the conversation will go when Parr is interviewed on the Paramount stage by a close friend. He’s quite certain there will be plenty of laughs.

“Martin is British, and his photography evolved into poking fun at the British culture, which is incredibly easy to poke fun at,” Nichols said. “He has done photo projects on British food and British people at the beach, where there is no sunshine.

“Gilles is a war photographer and social documentary photographer. He’s most agile photographing total chaos.”

For his part, Nichols will show only one photograph at this year’s festival. He will do it on Saturday evening at the Pavilion during the “Works” event, which runs from 9 to 11 p.m. and costs $10.

For the past 10 months Nichols has been taking pictures of coastal redwood trees in California. The image he will show will be a five-page foldout in the October issue of National Geographic magazine.

“The only thing I’m going to show is a tree, because she is 2,000 years old, 300 feet tall and it’ll bring you to your knees,” Nichols said. “The camera is going to pan up the tree slowly and then come back down while the song ‘Yellow Taxi’ by Joni Mitchell plays.

“Psychologically, the picture damn near killed me to make, because I just couldn’t figure it out. What I finally did was raise three cameras on ropes and pulleys and did a panorama of it, then tied it all together vertically.

“I was the maitre d’, but it was a totally collaborative effort with a huge amount of people involved — just like the festival.”

For more information and a full schedule of events, and to buy festival passes, go to http://www.look3.org.