Accounting alum Gary Auerbach (BSBA '71) founded Gary Auerbach Platinum Photography in 1989 and today his work can be found in the photographic collections of the Library of Congress and international museums. Just last month the Bibliotecque Nationale de France acquired 11 of his photographs. He also counts notables such as Walter Cronkite, Arnold Schwarzenegger, blues guitarist Taj Mahal, and Shelley Fabares among his photographic subjects.

An exhibition of Auerbach's Native American portraits is currently showing at the Fulton-Hayden Memorial Art Gallery of the Amerind Foundation. The show will run through the end of April, 2003.

While digital imagery has become a focal point of modern photography, Auerbach has adopted the traditional realm of the large camera negative and hand-made platinum photographic papers. He employs a 100-year-old printmaking process of hand applied platinum and palladium metal salts contact printed on watercolor paper. His work is reminiscent of the classical photographs of the turn-of-the-century, large format masters. The unique patinas and three-dimensional qualities of Auerbach's photographs create images that fall somewhere between the charcoal sketch and the photographic pallette.

His style has caught the attention of curators and art lovers alike. Maricia Battle, curator of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, observes that Auerbach's photographs "have an ethereal quality, with unmatched dimension and depth."

Gary Auerbach graduated from the Eller College as an accounting major in 1971 and headed off to the audit and management department of Coopers and Lybrand's San Francisco office.

Harrison Begay–Navajo © 2002 Gary Auerbach

His first major career change occurred five years after, when he began seeing a chiropractor. Says Auerbach, "I realized that rather than seeing a chiropractor, I could be a chiropractor. It changed my life."

"But," he continues, "I taught accounting while I was in chiropractic school. My education was never lost, it just took on different platforms. I even taught accounting and management procedures after chiropractic school. It's been a helpful skill to have when running my own chiropractic practice, for the 25 years I spent as a pistachio farmer in the family business, and in my photography business."

When a hand injury put an end to his chiropractic practice, Auerbach turned his passion for photography into a vocation.

In addition to his Native American portraits, he has extensively photographed in cities around the world. For nearly two decades he has served as a delegate to the General Assembly of the World Health Organization and has taken advantage of his international travels to capture images the world over.

See more of Auerbach's work online at www.platinumphotographer.com.

Click here to read "Images Made to Last: Platinum Portraits of Native Americans" by Maricia Battle, Curator, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress