Tribute: John LeBaron was sage-like mentor

John LeBaron was a mentor and teacher to thousands of photographers who? passed through his program at Santa Rosa Junior College. Young-blooded and outgoing even into his 80s, he could relate to any student, and I was lucky to learn from him.

“Hey, Kent. It’s John ?LeBaron. The PD has an opening for a photographer. You might give them a call.” That was a message John left on my answering machine in 1987.

I first met him in 1980, fresh from high school. Back then, I knew little about developing, printing or anything having to do with photography. Most of John’s pupils wanted to emulate the pictures they’d seen in magazines, newspapers or art galleries. Deliberately, though, John would encourage each student who took a keen interest in the craft to develop their own technique. “Find a shooting style you are comfortable with, and refine your vision,” he would say.

John was a sage-like figure who spoke my language and understood that photography was more than developing and printing. When John would talk about photography with me, our conversations would be electric; we both shared that same drive to make pictures and not just push a button.

During those slow winter days adjacent to the photo lab at Analy Hall, John would show work from photographers like Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-?Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Edward Weston and Eddie Adams. On occasion, John would show his own photos. I took an interest in his, partly because they included both scenic shots and journalism, much of it shot during his time as chief photographer at The Press Democrat. Over the course of 20 years, he earned numerous professional awards, many for photos featuring Sonoma County landscapes, characters and nature.

John, who was born and raised in Valley Ford, loved the landscape of Sonoma County, undeniably some of the most beautiful on the planet. It was during those formative years of his instruction that I realized great pictures could be made anywhere, not just in Paris or Rome. He felt at home behind a camera, and that passion showed in his work and was passed down to his students.

John was patient. I must have shown him a thousand test strips of some terrible photo I was attempting to print. “It needs a little more contrast,” or “Sure, sure, sure,” he would say.

One day, exasperated, he looked at me with a sideways glance and said, “You should be a painter, your prints have spot tone all over them.” It was true. My negatives were pock-marked with dust, and my prints would have tiny white specks all over them.

Grateful and enriched by the instruction of both John and Tom Chown, who still runs the photo lab today, I ventured off to Texas where I started my professional career before John’s fateful phone call brought me back to Sonoma County.

Brought to the paper partly by John LeBaron’s lifelong devotion to his craft, I was able to work closely with John and his wife, columnist Gaye LeBaron, during Christo’s unveiling of his Umbrellas exhibit back in the 1990s. Photographically, John kicked my butt. But working alongside my mentor and talking photography for the entire seven-hour trip back from Tehachapi to Sonoma County has been and always will be the highlight of my career.

John cared for his students and kept in touch, as with that message. Without that phone call, I doubt I’d have come back to Sonoma County. I would have never met my beautiful wife, Kelly, or had my son Mac, something that I treasure more than anything.

John LeBaron taught me that photography was more than just developing a negative or selecting depth-of-field. Photography is something a person can do the rest of their life. Thanks to John, that’s what I do.