[SOUND] >> It's time to meet the professors,
and I guess we'll start with me.
Well, here's a photograph that shows my Boy Scout merit badge
when I was 12-years-old.
I earned the merit badge in photography, and
also the merit badge in citizenship in the United States.
Those two things have been very important to me for my whole life, actually.
I went on to college at Syracuse University,
earned two bachelor's degrees, one in political science, that's one side of me,
and the other side in photo journalism, that's the other side.
After I graduated, I became a taxi driver in New York City to earn a living and
occupy myself while I was making photographs done in New York and
trying to figure out what to do next.
I went to law school, actually, after that and studied law for about two years and
then I decided the other side of my brain really wants me more than the left side,
so I walked over to the College of Visual & Performing Arts at Syracuse University
and started my studies in photography at the Masters Degree level.
In 1978, Michigan State University offered me a job, and now here I am teaching you.
My very first photo book was Edward Steichen's autobiography,
actually, A Life in Photography, published in 1963.
It was a really, really important thing for me.
This man was incredible in terms of the career that he had throughout so
many different iterations of that word, photography, and the profession.
Very much of an influence on me in terms of work ethic and approaching
photography as something you could do from a lot of different directions.
I'm either a dilettante or
a virtuoso, that'll be up to you to figure out and decide for yourself.
I read constantly and a lot of it is about photography.
And I've got a suggestion for you.
Go to L'Oeil de la Photographie, sign up, and
every morning you'll get an e-mail with some wonderful, amazing,
interesting news about photography from around the world.
I've had a career at Michigan State in the art department doing any number of things.
I published a book, actually Prentice Hall published my book, Color Photography.
I've created photographs for Fortune 100 companies, non-profits,
United Auto Workers, just about everybody.
And I've had exhibits in major museums and the tiniest of galleries.
You can learn a lot more about me at this website, which is the site for
the art department at Michigan State.
You can learn even more, if you care to, by going to peterglendinning.com.
And whether I'm photographing trees, or
photographing people, just about anything else,
my photographs are driven by a curiosity about what lies beneath the surface.
It can be expressed by showing the surface.
That's true whether I was making the official photograph for
the Governor of the State of Michigan, John Engler, which I did.
Or this portrait of a farm worker who
happens to be a Christian pastor on the weekends.
The highest honor that I've received professionally was being named
among the best of 2015 by the American Society for
Media Photographers for the series entitled, My Paris.
You can read a lengthy interview about me, and by me, and
of me, and learn more at this site.
ASMP is the premier advocate for photographers' copyrights and professional
practices throughout the world, and I recommend that you look them up, too.