William Giles and Patrick Jablonski go beyond the ordinary in their landscape photography.

There is no greater challenge for photographers working within the parameters of fine art black-and-white landscape photography than finding an integrity of vision that lifts them above the legion of derivative practitioners of the genre. In their Manifestations of the Mind’s Eye, opening March 21 at the Highlands Inn, local photographers William Giles and Patrick Jablonski demonstrate that there is continued creative vitality and aesthetic resonance to be found in this work.

Both Giles and Jablonski share the belief that the essence of photography and the source of the photographic experience isn’t found in the subject as much as within light itself. It is light, say both artists, that is the true expression of the physical and spiritual underpinnings of their art.

“My entire life has been a pilgrimage towards light,” explains Giles. “Light has always been my message, and my photographs are a kind of magical trinity between the sun, the object and your angle to it. Light emanates from objects according to the intensity and clarity of one’s vision, and my photographs are simply footnotes of one man’s journey to sense light itself as the creative force.”

“There is a similar energy that runs through our work,” says Jablonski, who has lived on the Peninsula since 1991 and worked as a photographic assistant for photographers John Sexton and the late Morley Baer. “Both of us have been influenced by the West Coast School of Photography, and I’ve always considered light to be my subject. Light illuminates and exhilarates subject matter and hopefully reveals something about the subject that isn’t always seen and expected. While my work is less abstract than Will’s, there is still that spiritual motivation.”

In a wide-ranging and varied 50-year career, Giles has worked as a commercial portrait photographer, a photojournalist documenting the civil rights movement in the American South, an inspirational teacher and mentor to generations of photographers, and a much-recognized fine art photographer lauded for the superb craftsmanship and artistic vision of his abstract and landscape photographs. Like Alfred Stieglitz and his former mentor Minor White, Giles affirms the belief that photography can be a pathway to a higher truth, that through creative vision and intuition, a photograph can rise to the level of metaphor.

“The beauty of what Stieglitz did is show that all photographs are metaphors,” says Giles. “Photography is internal vision. You can only see outside proportional to your inward consciousness, and I would call the photographs I make ‘inner-landscapes’ rather than landscapes as such.”

Having just turned 70, and having spent the past few months selecting work for his exhibit at the Highlands, Giles looks back on the ebb and flow of his life and career with an undiminished commitment to photography as art, as a way of life, and as a healing force.

“I have always photographed in a meditative manner, and with me the philosophic consideration is one hundred percent,” Giles insists. “How a person goes about seeing something is dependent on their belief system. I would like my photography [to create] a completely different reality by showing just the ordinariness of things.”

While acknowledging the challenges of maintaining a creative edge in what is an admittedly overworked genre, Jablonski, a much younger artist than Giles, also remains inspired to pursuing the highest artistic ideals and forms of expression in black-and-white landscape photography. He will exhibit approximately 20 images, including regional landscapes and coastal views as well as images from the Southwest.

“The hardest part for me is holding onto my vision and true path in a genre that is inundated with a lot of great photographers,” says Jablonski. “What keeps me going is to show the landscape in a new light, to create the best rendition of the landscape and create photographs that rise above expectations.”

Manifestations of the Mind’s Eye is the first exhibition to be staged by the Ansel Adams Gallery since the closing of its gallery space on Cannery Row in January. According to Matthew Adams, gallery president and grandson of the famed photographer, this first collaboration between the gallery and the Highlands Inn is part of a long-term strategy to promote local and regional photographers through a future series of workshops, programs and lectures.

“The high cost of operation, including rent and staff costs was one of the determining factors in closing the gallery,” Adams explains. “We had been at Spanish Bay for six years beginning in 1993, but there was not enough foot traffic. While we were hanging in there at the Cannery Row gallery, we weren’t doing the kind of business where we could expect long-term growth.”

The Ansel Adams Gallery continues to represent 16 artists, and maintains its famed gallery at Yosemite National Park, as well as an active Internet site.

Through his collaboration with the Highlands Inn, Adams hopes to keep photography a vital and viable presence on the Central Coast. “It’s a tough business right now for everybody,” Adams acknowledges. “Art work is considered a luxury item.”

Manifestations of the Mind’s Eye—William Giles and Patrick Jablonski opens with a reception March 21 from 4:30-7pm at the Highlands Inn.