Artist’s Statement & Biography

The sampling of my works shown at this site represents an ever growing collection of scenes in areas I've had the great opportunity to explore.

The simple display of something beautiful is becoming lost in Art. My work attempts to show beauty and a sense of serenity. I hope to inspire the viewer and provide them with a place to let their imagination explore.

Preparing each work takes painstaking hours of work. I often go back to a location many times to capture what i'm after. Then there is the process of getting the image to look great on print. Then there is the process of finishing the work on canvas or cotton rag paper and framing it.

Photographic image files are quite large and to make the image file acceptable on the web, images are reduced in size and detail. Also most computer monitors do not show color accurately. All these things add up to lost detail and nuance. While the core elements are there and the images are suitable for your review and enjoyment, something is definitely not the same in these small reproductions. I kindly ask that you trust me when I say that the prints are lots and lots more colorful, nuanced, and detailed than what can be shown here.

Thank you for stopping by !

Biography

I earned two bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Portland State University and have been a student of photography over much of my life. I started a serious study of photography back in the early 1970s and continued my formal studies for seven years. After that i spent another 8 years studying Arts and the Humanities at Portland State University, for a total of 10 years of higher education.

After grad school, I started a small company and have provided information technology support ever since. A few short years ago a combination of events encouraged me to return to Photography, an area I always loved. A few years back my first cousin and significant influence Keith Lebenzon, who made a career for himself as an artist, passed on rather suddenly. It was at his funeral that I decided to make the effort to show (and hopefully sell) my photographic works. I received encouragement from several people to do this and so decided to grasp the opportunity and have spent countless hours over several years teaching myself how to work with the latest photography related technologies including digital stitching and Photoshop, as well as the very old technologies of picture matt making and framing, which are themselves, both very exacting art forms.

It continues to be a very fun and challenging learning process and the results are pretty darned good!

Contact me

Tracy Lebenzon
(a.k.a. Justan Elk)
7043 14th Ave SW
Seattle, Washington 98106
Phone: 206-763-8874
Email:  dmountains@gmail.com