Ron Zak - photographer - Interview

Ron Zak is more than just a pretty picture. Although he's best known in the wine industry for his zany, sometimes off-the-wall photographs and posters for Gundlach-Bundschu, the Sonoma Valley Wine Auction and other wine projects, Zak - an honors graduate in psychology and art/photography at the Master's level and with a background in engineering - has a life beyond wine.

Zak, who has taught at various institutions for over two decades, has been the International Education Coordinator at Napa Valley College since 1992. In that position he has led credit courses in France, Costa Rica, Italy, Spain and Greece. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Belgrade in 1989.

When Ron Zak says, "Say Cheese," people listen.

"I got hooked on photography as an undergraduate majoring in psychology. I took an elective photography class and the hook was there and everything in my life changed. It's the visual aspect that got me. Everything has to be there at the right moment. In a way it's limited but it's also expanding. All of a sudden, the moment is there and what you get on film depends on how closely you are paying attention."

Zak has obviously been paying attention. He's had dozens of group and solo exhibitions both national and international in the past 20 years, including a current show called Retrospective/Series 3 at St. Supery Gallery in the winery in Napa. His work has appeared in a number of newspapers and magazines over the years as well.

How did Zak's connection with wine come about?

"I was doing some work for local newspapers and the seed for the zany side of the work came through Gundlach-Bundschu. Once that started, it opened a whole series of posters and a bunch of stuff with other wineries," he said.

Zak, who operates Zak Photographics, a studio specializing in fashion and product advertising, editorial, portraiture and book illustration, said that some 75% of his work is wine industry-related.

Does his interest in wine go beyond making sure it's in focus?

"I do enjoy wine. I'm definitely a hearty red man. Big Cabernets and Merlots are my favorite, though I don't have a particular winery that is a favorite. Whatever I come across," he answered. OK, no favorite wines, as long as it's a hearty red, how about favorite wine posters?

"There's something visually about each one that I relish and it's always about the people in the poster. Who are the people involved? How do they make the photograph sing?"

One of his favorites was the red wine revolution poster shot in Belgrade in 1989 in the midst of the crisis that all of Central Europe was facing.

"That was shot in a restaurant called Dva Ribara, which means two fisherman. The people were students and a gallery owner. We put a lot of energy into the picture, the costuming, the clothes. That picture has a whole string of stories connected to it, including the basis tragic comedy aspect of the political situation then. One of them said, 'We are always in crisis and always reforming.' That's why I say the posters are all about people."

Zak said all of his work is in one sense a form of provocation. "I want someone to notice. I want the viewer to have a relationship with the work of art. I want the viewer to wonder about it, maybe be confused, or whatever."

It is difficult in this day and age to get someone's attention, even for a few moments.

Zak's position as Director of International Education takes a great deal of his energy. "I work to set up credit courses and study programs for Napa College students all over the world. I believe that a first hand experience in diverse cultures will give a better understanding of that culture. We want the student to live as closely as possible like the people in the culture. For example, I might do a class with an art historian in Italy, where students would have the experience of art and photography set within the Italian. culture - not living in an international hotel."

Travel is important to Zak and one of his favorite places is Paris. "I just can't get enough of Paris. Yet I have never done any great photographs of Paris, even though it does attract photographers. Maybe its importance is just that it is there," Zak said.

In his personal work, such as the current show at St. Supery and a show last year at Codorniu Napa, the exhibits range from straightforward photographs of his personal point of view, to mixed media images on canvas or paper.

"The Codorniu show had a lot to do with the site, with things that spring from the winery's Catalonian background," Zak noted.

"I guess the bottom line is that my work deals with the human situation, in its complexity and its wonderfulness."

Right on. And pass the hearty red, if you please.

You can contact Ron Zak at P.O. Box 865, Sonoma, Calif. 95476; tel: (707) 996-3606. He will furnish a client list upon request.

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