Background

Michael Burns was born on January 31, 1942 in Lubbock, Texas, United States.

Education

Michael Burns specialized in painting at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art (1966), and at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he completed an Master of fine arts (1969).

Career

Michael Burns has been working as a freelance photographer since 1972. Previously he held several teaching positions: he was an assistant professor at West Texas State University in Canyon (1971 - 1972), a visiting artist at the University of Denver in Colorado (1970-1971) and a visiting lecturer at the University of California in Berkeley (1969- 1970).

Michael Burns has usually photographed landscapes, nudes and architecture. The photographs in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography are early contact prints photographed using an 8x10 view camera, which Burns used for several years to photograph urban architecture and enigmatic, vernacular architectural structures he found in the desolate desert areas of the Great Basin in the Western United States. He stopped using his 8x10 camera in 1984, after a month-long project photographing the Berlin Wall that was later exhibited in the Seattle Art Museum (1987). In 1985, he began to use Leica rangefinder cameras, working in Seattle, New York, Paris, and Egypt. In 2001, Burns stopped shooting film and transitioned to shooting digitally.

Works

More photos

• photography

  • Exhibition poster for Michael Burns: Seattle Photographs, Seattle Art Museum

  • Lighthouse

    (gelatin silver print)

    1980

  • Garrapata, California

    (gelatin silver print)

    1975

  • Untitled

    (gelatin silver print)

    1975

  • Tacoma Port

    (gelatin silver print)

    1977

  • Untitled (80-120, Seattle)

    (gelatin silver print)

    1980

  • Untitled-76-132

    1976

  • Untitled-76-255

    1976

  • Studio Views

    1978

  • photography

    2003