About James Rathbun

Born to early pioneering family, James Rathbun grew up and continues to reside in Los Angeles, CA. His close family was instrumental in developing his respect for nature and the outdoors. His earliest memories are driving around the country in the old family ford truck and visiting various national and state parks.

He began taking pictures at a relatively early age. As a boy, James always watched his father take photos on all of their trips. At the age of 10, his father gave him an old twin reflex medium format camera, to learn to take pictures. His father taught James how to expose the film, and how to trade between aperture and time. James learned a few tricks such as double exposures. James will be the first to acknowledge that his early experience was not much more than a waste of film.

Listening to his father tell stories of his adventures in the Boy Scouts of America convinced James to join the boy scouts when he was old enough. His primary goal upon entering the scouts was to go on as many camping trips as possible. James joined Troop 2 of San Gabriel, CA. During this time in his life, James backpacked in the High Sierras, hiked across the Grand Canyon at the age of thirteen, and rafted down the canyon at eighteen. On his trail to Eagle Scout, James traveled all over Southern California, and the western United States and learned many skills that continue to aid him in his daily life.

James Rathbun continued to experiment with photography during this time as well. While attending St. Francis High School, he became the sports photographer for both the newspaper and yearbook. Taking moving sports shots at night with a manual camera was quite challenging, but somehow James managed to got a few photos published.

During college, and an early working career James took a hiatus from both photography and camping. Family priorities changed a bit during this time, but James did not realize how much he missed the outdoors until he started camping again almost 8 years later.

In the winter of 2000 James purchased a new Canon EOS Elan 7. Realizing how much he missed the out of doors he began camping again with a vengeance. He wanted to visit the places he went as a boy, and learned to appreciate the landscapes in a way that he could not as a boy. James started reading anything and everything about photography that he could find. James Rathbun wanted to do more than take a picture or two, he wanted to capture moments in time with photographs. James started studying composition, light and learning how to really use and understanding the tools as well as predict exposure.

After some success with a 35mm camera, James started taking medium format images with a Hasselblad 1000F. Although much slower to use, he loved the quality of images produced from the large 6 cm square film size. Eventually, he purchased his first large camera, a Crown Graphic press camera built in 1951. The "old technology" came to life in his hands and much higher quality, and large print sizes eventaully found it's way onto this website.

If you are interesting in contacting James, please send him e-mail at jim@jamesrathbun.com.