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By Stacy Trevenon
For Lars Howlett, taking pictures en route to work as a photographer for the Half Moon Bay Review, during the day or while heading home developed so that covering stories is more than a job.
“I don’t separate my life between working for the paper and living,” said the easygoing but eagle-eyed Howlett, 34. “I’m a photographer all the time.”
That outlook, plus Howlett’s Review work, led to “La Costa Nostra” (“Our Coast”), a special exhibition of his favorite images — published and unpublished — taken on assignment along the California coast.
The exhibition, at the Coastside Gallery and Wine Bar at 300 Main St. in Half Moon Bay through Dec. 20, presents 52 signed, archival, color, framed or unframed canvas or matted prints, for sale from $100 up. Having opened Dec. 3, an artist’s reception was Sunday, Dec. 12.
At the reception, Howlett gave a digital slide show of images taken over the last two years and discuss the stories behind them.
Visual storytelling is Howlett’s focus, one he pursued through journalism and longer-term documentary projects.
He was born in Texas and raised in Paraguay (where his father’s job with the U.N. took the family) and North Virginia, but it was at Northwestern University that “photography became my life.” He served as photo editor of the college yearbook, interned with the daily La Nación in Chile while on a semester’s study abroad, and returned to Chile after graduation to backpack through the country and pursue a solo project.
“I fell in love with photography then, because it took me out to experience things I otherwise wouldn’t,” he said. “It pushes me out and gives me the courage and motivation to explore.”
Photography also sets up the kind of connection between photographer and subject that Howlett regards as a sacred trust.
“The photographer is given unique permission to bear witness and be present, whether on the field at a soccer game, at the funeral of a politician, spending a day on the farm or on a tour of the (Devil’s Slide) tunnel,” he said. “You have to have the trust of the subject to let you into their world.”
The camera is his means to learn and teach, he added. “I see photography as a way of studying and connecting to the world around you. The photographer uses the camera as a tool to focus on the subject, learn about if visually and communicate that perspective to others.”
Howlett has participated in 40 exhibits in Chile, Washington, D.C., the Coastside and primarily San Francisco. (His most recent local presentation, at Enso in January, was of his trek to Nepal.) He taught photography for three years, teaching black-and-white photography and darkroom techniques to sophomores at Sacred Heart Preparatory in Menlo Park (now Atherton) and digital photography at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
Now he’s happy to show in Half Moon Bay. “It’s important to do this on Main Street, so that it will be accessible to both locals and people visiting. … It offers an interesting, broad perspective of life on the Coastside.”
The Coastside Gallery can be reached at 726-4460.
