January 2013
Artist’s Statement
People usually discover Weimaraners via William Wegman’s Fay Ray. My first experience with a Weim was in 1968 in Germany where I saw a groundskeeper’s dog at a G.I. Rod & Gun club in the Black Forest. Watching the dog’s (seemingly) complete disinterest in humans while in the woods changed my idea of what a dog could be. This was the first time I ever saw a working animal in an environment for which it was bred. I wanted a Weimaraner ever since.
These dog images do not serve any pre-conceptualized creative idea but started more from a need to practice chrome exposure, framing and trap focus with large format cameras. There are some 35mm shots, as well. The best thing about photographing dogs is that they don’t always do what you want. To catch them in good light with some sort of compelling action is a challenge – even more so with the limited depth of field of a large format camera.
In the last fifteen years with my Weimaraner, Mosby (Ch. Graytsky’s Out-of-Towner) and our Hungarian Vizslas, Gizi (Mattapex’s Rockets Red Glare), Luca and Gida (Double Guns’ Lookout and Giddyup Girl), I’ve learned more about photography than I have in the last four decades combined. Walking in a quiet wood isn’t the same without my dogs looping the trails ahead of me.
Biography
William Gray has a B.A. from the University of Maryland in Photography and Film. He has been a part of the motion picture industry for more than three decades. His image-making experience includes work on TV, feature films, commercials and documentaries enabling him to work with some of the best cameramen and directors in the business. Today he is a set still photographer on feature films, as well as a director of photography for commercial and feature shorts.
William grew up on military bases across Europe and Asia. He has had a camera, in one form or another, in his hands since 1969. In the early 1970’s, his family settled in Maryland.
