When he was very young, Marty Knapp cooled off on hot Connecticut summer nights by lying in his yard and gazing at the sky through toy binoculars. Six decades later, the photographer is at it again, this time looking through a viewfinder to capture striking black and white photographs that counterpoise dramatic scenery and endless universe. He and his wife, Jean, gathered his recent work into an exhibit, titled “The Night Sky,” running through Jan. 16 at the Marty Knapp Photo Gallery in Point Reyes Station.
During his 30 years in West Marin, where he has created photos reminiscent of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, Marty has refreshed his mind and spirit on camping trips to the high desert. “When you’re up in the desert, you’re so high you get to see the Milky Way and all kinds of stars. It fascinated me. So, I tried to photograph it,” he said.
Two years ago, in the Eastern Sierra, a friend showed him how to use his camera to capture the beauty of the stars by leaving the aperture open from 12 to 20 seconds and protecting the tripod from any movement. “When you look up at the sky,” he said, “you don’t see all that galactic dust—you see the band of stars—but the camera sees more than the human eye.”
Marty tried his first astronomic photo early one morning last April: Joshua Trees dancing near a rock outcropping below the Milky Way. With that shot, he was hooked. Back in Point Reyes, he wanted to see if he could capture the beaches he cherished in the night, but he had to wait nearly four months for a new moon with a clear sky. “A full moon provides too much light pollution, and you don’t get the drama of the Milky Way,” he said.
One very late night in September, a heat wave hit Point Reyes and the fog was gone, so Marty set out for the coast. He got his shot at Drakes Beach. “It came out really well and inspired me,” he said.
Caught in the excitement of his new process, the lensman soon walked alone to McClures Beach in the wee hours. As he descended into the shadows, he heard noises on both sides of him and grew leery. “It is kind of scary at night because you walk through a canyon and don’t know what kind of wild animals are out there,” he remembered. To his relief, a camera malfunction sent him home.
The next time he went to McClures, Marty invited Jean to come with him to add a layer of safety during the dark sojourn. “She helped me, holding my flashlight and equipment while I set up,” he said. Marty was on the beach, paying attention to the sky while Jean kept an eye out for sneaker waves. “We made that photo, and it turns out to be one of my all-time favorites, especially because Jean shared the experience. It shows that rocky point with the water. It’s simple and beautiful.”
Looking back, Marty realizes his love for photography started at the same time he discovered his love of the night sky. “I think it was when my grandfather gave me a camera. I was 10 or 11 years old and immediately became smitten with all the dials and the mechanical aspects of the camera, and the fact that a little can could hold 36 pictures. That a roll of film could hold all those pictures seemed infinite to me. Thirty-six: holy cow!
“That was a touchstone that I revisited as an adult. A camera came into my hands again and it was like, I was real happy. It was a visceral experience.”
As an adult, Marty moved to San Francisco, first working as a carpenter and then for Brass Menagerie, a counter-culture accessory manufacturer. When the company moved to Point Reyes in 1973, Marty came, too.
Jean remembered that it was during trips back East to care for his ailing mother that Marty decided to take pictures of the beautiful landscape here to show her. “He discovered he was a photographer while he was doing that,” she mused.
In fall, our galaxy is visible about two hours after sunset in the southwest sky. Marty had to walk all of two minutes to shoot his next picture, of the Giacomini Wetlands barn with the Inverness Ridge behind and the Milky Way beyond. He went out a few more times: McClures to shoot Bodega Bay lights and the Big Dipper, to the Nicasio Reservoir, and to Abbotts Lagoon. “This was one of my most intense creative periods,” he said. “I got to photograph the night sky, and I went to some of my favorite places.”
The Marty Knapp Photo Gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, and by appointment, at 11245 Highway 1, in Point Reyes Station. In a constellation of coincidences, Peggy Day went to elementary school in Guilford, Conn. on the same school bus with Marty Knapp. From fifth grade on, Jean was in his class, a year behind Peggy, although Jean was born an hour before her, on the same New Year’s Day.