Description
Born in Nebraska and raised in Lead, South Dakota, Ray earned a BA in journalism from South Dakota State University. Several press photography courses and a color photography course are his only formal training.
Taking his first photographs at the age of eight with his mother’s brownie box camera, he says that it has only taken forty years to learn how to translate his original visualizations into finished art. His years in the Black Hills, coupled with the subsequent years on the South Dakota prairie, have given him an appreciation for both the closed-in feelings of the forest and wide-open-sky-dominated Plains.
Years as a hunter, fisherman and observer have opened his eyes to the beauty, power and personality of nature. Tysdal’s vision is to isolate and translate these properties into permanent black and white photographic images.
All photographs are black and white gelatin silver prints made from 35mm negatives.