Christian Rumple is a middle school art teacher at a public school in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2018, he was awarded a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship, which provides funds for Indiana K-12 educators to pursue creative interests outside of teaching.
Rumple is a multidisciplinary artist, but has long been fascinated by the work of a collective of early 20th-century photographers in Northern California who called themselves Group f/64. Group f/64 was known for their thoughtful compositions, sharp focus, and obsessive technical precision. The most well-known photographer of this group was Ansel Adams.
Rumple chose to use his fellowship to explore and photograph landscapes documented by Adams nearly a century ago. Naming the project Ansel Adams’ Lost Puppy, he set out on a quest to find inspiration from this long-lost master, retracing Adams’ steps while working with the same style of large-format camera that would have been found with Group f/64.
I was asked to join the project as Camera Assistant, Mountain Guide, and Documentarian.