Mikkel Aaland (born 1952) is a Norwegian-American photographer, based in San Francisco and Norway. He is known for work in the early days of

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image ...

, as well as his twelve books on photography. He is best known for his 1978 book ''Sweat'', an illustrated history of sweat bathing. His documentary photographs have been exhibited in major institutions around the world, including the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and the former Lenin Museum in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

. Aaland is the author of works of memoir, books featuring his own photojournalism as well as works on digital imaging and various Adobe Photoshop products.

Biography

Early years

Aaland was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and grew up in nearby

Livermore, California Livermore (formerly Livermorès, Livermore Ranch, and Nottingham) is a city in Alameda County, California. With a 2020 population of 87,955, Livermore is the most populous city in the Tri-Valley. It is located on the eastern edge of Californ ...

. His

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

born father worked as a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory research facility. Aaland was an

Eagle Scout Eagle Scout is the highest achievement or rank attainable in the Scouts BSA program of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Since its inception in 1911, only four percent of Scouts have earned this rank after a lengthy review process. The Eagle S ...

who attended

Livermore High School Founded in 1891, Livermore Union High School is a public high school located in the city of Livermore, California, United States. It is part of the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. In 2007, it was chosen as one in four schools i ...

, where he played football. He graduated from

California State University, Chico California State University, Chico, or commonly, Chico State, is a public university in Chico, California. Founded in 1887, it is the second oldest campus in the California State University system. As of the fall 2020 semester, the university h ...

with a major in photojournalism and was an All-American swimmer on the NCAA Division II championship team.

Beginning career

In 1978, Aaland published his first book, ''Sweat: The Illustrated History and Description of the Finnish Sauna, Russian Bania, Islamic Hammam, Japanese Mushi-buro, Mexican Temescal, and American Indian & Eskimo Sweat Lodge''. The book was the culmination of a three-year travel and photo-journalistic tour of the world's various bathing customs. Aaland continues to be an active proponent and historian of sweat bathing. Aaland published his second nonfiction book, ''County Fair: Portraits'' (1981) after spending nine years traveling the United States visiting county fairs.

Jon Carroll Jon Carroll (born November 6, 1943) was a columnist for the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' from 1982, when he succeeded columnist Charles McCabe, to 2015, when he retired. His column appeared on the back page of the ''Chronicle''s Datebook section ...

wrote in ''New West'' magazine, "(County Fair) is a chronicle of people being who they are. These faces become historical." The photographer

Mary Ellen Mark Mary Ellen Mark (March 20, 1940 – May 25, 2015) was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and t ...

said of the book: "Such moving photographs, funny and sad. It's real Americana. Aaland is a latter day Mike Disfarmer." In 1982, Aaland appeared as a guest on the ''

David Letterman Show ''The David Letterman Show'' is an American morning talk show that was hosted by David Letterman on NBC. It originally aired from June 23 to October 24, 1980. Originally, the series lasted 90 minutes, then 60 minutes from August 4 onward. Back ...

'', sharing work from both ''Sweat'' and ''County Fair''. During an interview in 1981, Aaland was introduced to the newly emerging field of digital photography by renowned photographer Ansel Adams. He contributed articles and photos for other publications such as ''American Photographer'', ''FOTO'', ''American Photo'', ''Digital Creativity'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'', ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', '' Popular Science'', and ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

''. In 1981, he received the National Art Director's award for photography.

Digital photography instruction

Aaland was one of the first to write about digital photography. In the 1980s he wrote covered the topic in a regular column on the topic for ''American Photographer'', and as West Coast editor of Swedish magazine ''FOTO''. In 1992, Aaland released the book ''Digital Photography''. The book gives instruction and tips on using digital cameras to take unique photographs. He followed that with ''Still Images in Multimedia'' (1996) and then ''Shooting Digital: Pro Tips for Taking Great Pictures with Your Digital Camera'' (2003), which was named by Designer's Bookshelf as "Best Digital Photography Book of the Year for 2004." Aaland has been the co-host of the Nordic Light International Festival of Photography since 2011. Beginning in 2001, Aaland began publishing a number of guidebooks about using the computer design program

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

to enhance digital photography; ''Photoshop Elements Solutions: The Art of Digital Photography'' was followed by second, third, and fourth volumes. He also acted as an unpaid adviser to the development of both the alpha, beta, and final versions of the

Adobe Photoshop Elements Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

application. ''Photoshop CS2 RAW: Using Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge, and Photoshop to Get the Most Out of Your Digital Camera'' (2006) was Aaland's first of two books explaining the graphic file format

RAW Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

, which is used by professional photographers. While working as an adviser on beta tests for

Adobe Lightroom Adobe Lightroom (officially Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) is a piece of image organization and image manipulation software developed by Adobe Inc. as part of the Creative Cloud subscription family. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, ...

, Aaland proposed a real-world test of the software by inviting professional photographers to travel to a far-off land where they would use Lightroom. The result of this was ''Photoshop Lightroom Adventure: Mastering Adobe's Next-generation Tool for Digital Photographers'' (2007), which brought professional photographers to Iceland to test the software. Aaland followed up that book the same year with ''Photoshop Lightroom 2 Adventure: Mastering Adobe's Next-generation Tool for Digital Photographers'', which brought professional photographers to Tasmania to show users how photographers work with the Lightroom 2 software.

Memoir and travel work

In a diversion from photography instruction, Aaland published ''The Sword of Heaven: A Five Continent Odyssey to Save the World'' (1999), detailing the six years he spent traveling around the world documenting a peace project initiated by survivors of Hiroshima and led by a

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

priest. During this time, Aaland dropped brick-sized pieces of a holy Shinto Sword of Heaven into bodies of water around the world to form a protective ring of

kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

. Aaland's most recent book, ''The River in My Backyard'', is an illustrated memoir exploring his family history, the murder of his father, and his pilgrimage to

Mount Kailash Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of ...

. In 1984, ''

'' sent Aaland to Paris to interview filmmaker Chris Marker. The interview was later published as the cover story of ''Digital Creativity''. Following the interview, the two became friends and correspondents. Aaland is currently working on a project that will honor Marker.

Sweat bathing

Aaland, as the author of ''Sweat: The Illustrated History and Description of the Finnish Sauna, Russian Bania, Islamic Hammam, Japanese Mushi-buro, Mexican Temescal, and American Indian & Eskimo Sweat Lodge,'' is recognized as an authority for sweat bathing. In 2014, Aaland organized the Perfect Sweat Summit in San Francisco, bringing together 50 international experts on sweat bathing. Aaland is currently filming a travel documentary series, ''Perfect Sweat'', which combines his career-long interests in photography, travel, and sweat bathing. The documentary series is an exploration of bathing traditions around the world and revisits the topic of his 1978 book ''Sweat''.

Bibliography

* ''Sweat: The Illustrated History and Description of the Finnish Sauna, Russian Bania, Islamic Hammam, Japanese Mushi-buro, Mexican Temescal, and American Indian & Eskimo Sweat Lodge'', Capra Press: Santa Barbara, 1978; reprinted, Borgo Press: San Bernardino, 1989; reprinted as ebook, Cyberbohemia Press: San Francisco, 2017. * ''County Fair: Portraits'', Capra Press: Santa Barbara, 1981. * ''The Sword of Heaven: A Five Continent Odyssey to Save the World'', Traveler's Tales: San Francisco, 1999. *''Pilgrimage to Kailash: Tibet's Holy Mountain'', Cyberbohemia Press: San Francisco, 2013. *''The River in My Backyard'', Cyberbohemia Press: San Francisco, 2016.

Photography instruction

* ''Digital Photography'' (with Rudolph Burger), Random House: New York, 1992. ASIN B000KVE4BA * ''Still Images in Multimedia'', Hayden Books: Indianapolis, 1996. * ''Photoshop for the Web'', O'Reilly Media: Cambridge, MA, 1998; 2nd edition, 1999. * ''Photoshop Elements Solutions: The Art of Digital Photography'', Sybex: San Francisco, 2001; 2nd edition, 2002; 3rd edition, 2005; Wiley: Indianapolis, 2005. * ''Shooting Digital: Pro Tips for Taking Great Pictures with Your Digital Camera'', Sybex: San Francisco, 2003; Sybex/Wiley: Indianapolis, 2007. * ''Photoshop CS2 RAW: Using Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge, and Photoshop to Get the Most Out of Your Digital Camera'', O'Reilly Media: Sebastopol, 2006; reprinted as ''Photoshop CS3 RAW: Transform Your RAW Images into Works of Art'', O'Reilly Media: Sebastopol CA, 2008. * ''Photoshop Lightroom Adventure: Mastering Adobe's Next-generation Tool for Digital Photographers'', O'Reilly Media: Sebastopol, 2007; 2nd edition, 2007.

References

External links

''Blogcritics'', Testi, T. Michael. February 12, 2008''Online Photographer'', Ctein. June 8, 2009''Photography Today'' Testi, T. Michael. September 5, 2007Artist websiteO'Reilly Media profile''Shooting Digital'' websiteDavid Letterman appearanceInterview with Leo Laporte
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aaland, Mikkel 1952 births Living people Photographers from San Francisco People from Livermore, California California State University, Chico alumni American people of Norwegian descent