Portrait of an Artist – Joel Hensler: Images sublime to wild

I don’t like to pinpoint any [favorite] photograph. It varies from day to day. All of a sudden, for example, I may become interested in butterflies or something else. I can say that since I retired almost 10 years ago, I’ve been pursuing the One Great Photograph. – Joel Hensler

 

By TIM WILCOX
Special to the Alpine Mountaineer

You’d think that a late-morning conversation with Joel Hensler, conducted in Lake Arrowhead Village a dozen feet or so from the water, would begin with remarks related to fine-art photography. Instead, simply as a prelude to that subject, Joel reveals his knowledge of another art form: sushi. Because it’s one his favorite edibles, he’s a finicky consumer, paying obsessive attention to the types of tuna that sushi chefs factor into their rolls. Bluefin, bigeye, yellowfin, skipjack, yellowtail. . . You name it!

Joel is clearly a connoisseur of Japan’s most famous culinary duo, which includes sashimi. But while this predilection may be interesting and even appetizing, it’s incidental to “Portrait of an Artist.” What’s essential is that Joel is a superlative photographer.

He was born and grew up in Glendale, where the Henslers had lived for several generations. Reflecting on his early years, Joel recalls that “like so many other photographers, my first encounter with a camera was with a hand-me-down Kodak Brownie camera. I was 8 years old at the time. But for some reason when I went to take a shot, the photo would come out blurry.” Apparently, pressing the balky shutter button with his small finger caused the camera to shake. So, he adds with a chuckle, “I wasn’t immediately won over by that experience.”

The artist continues: “All through my school years, I was much more interested in painting and drawing. In first grade I actually won two blue ribbons at the L.A. County Fair in Pomona for paintings I’d done. If I used a camera, it was an Instamatic or Polaroid and then only for family photos or something to draw. It wasn’t until college, where I took several art and photography classes, that I realized I thoroughly loved photography.”

Arizona, L.A. and Vietnam

Still, Joel didn’t set his sights on becoming a professional photographer. Instead, after a brief stint at the University of Arizona in Tucson, he went to work for the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange in downtown Los Angeles. There he was a “floor report” clerk for a short time before being drafted in 1969. Initially, he served at Fort Bragg in North Carolina as a “clerk/typist who couldn’t type,” then a clerk charged with ordering auto parts, weapons and more. Inevitably, Joel was shipped off to Vietnam, where he completed the required two years of military service as a clerk/typist at the joint-service command center just outside of Saigon.

“They tried to convince me to go to West Point [the U.S. Military Academy in New York], but I’d had enough and was ready to be a civilian again,” Joel shares. So in the early 1970s, he returned to the stock exchange in L.A. for a few months, then enrolled at what’s now Glendale Community College. That’s where he was strongly influenced by classes in art and photography.

Did a career in photography follow? Nope. With a pragmatic bent, Joel worked in the auto-parts industry for a while, then was persuaded by his in-laws (he’d gotten married soon after Vietnam) to help them run their uniform-rental business. He became part owner in the venture and headed up operations for about three years.

Higher education called once again, though, and Joel moved north to attend Chico State University (now California State University, Chico), where he focused on commercial art, printmaking and photography. During his tenure there stretching into the late 1970s, he became fascinated with screen printing and also stone lithography. He continued painting and drawing as well. In fact, some of his drawings were featured in a literary magazine called Phantasm.

Over the course of the years that followed, into the ’80s and beyond, Joel continued on his many-faceted professional journey. He worked for cable-TV companies, starting in Fremont. Then he was a substitute teacher at the middle-school level. Next, down south once again, he was a highly successful salesman for a fine-art gallery on Lido Isle in Newport Beach. The company, which owned several galleries, moved him to other locations. His obvious skills and consistent results earned him a promotion to director.

This is where photography became a much more prominent element of his professional portfolio. According to Joel: “As a gallery director for about 14 years, I eventually started building a website to sell the artwork online. This brought me back to photography, and in order to represent the artwork effectively, I had to hone my skills. Later, when I changed career directions to boat sales [Inland Boat Center in Lake Arrowhead], website maintenance and advertising, I spent much of my time shooting landscapes, sunrises and sunsets.”

First love at last

Following retirement in 2016, Joel finally embraced his first love. He became a member of the Mountain Arts Network and juried into the nonprofit’s gallery in Lake Arrowhead Village. Of course, his landscapes, sunrises and sunsets are among the eye-catching photos on display there. He’s also known for his animal images, such as pronghorns, cattle, dogs and iguanas (“Mine in particular,” he says). In that realm, Joel has developed a dominant specialty: wild horses.

In 2018 he visited Bridgeport, a historic town in Mono County, where he took a workshop that concentrated on such photography. In Adobe Valley between Mono Lake and Benton, he captured images of wild horses that were part of a herd numbering about 200.

“I soon became fascinated with this subject and now have visited the area 14 times,” Joel says. “I also discovered another Bureau of Land Management horse-management area in the Onaqui Mountains of Utah, where there are about 400 wild horses.”

If all of the above weren’t enough, Joel is an expert in drone photography. He’s perfected that high-flying pursuit over the course of the past six years and currently uses a top-of-the-line Hasselblad unit made by the renowned Swedish manufacturer. He’s won several awards for his digital-single-lens-reflex drone photos, and one of them was even displayed in the Riverside Art Museum for a month. Overall, Joel’s photography has been featured in several publications and has appeared in numerous ads.

Does he have a favorite image? “I don’t like to pinpoint any particular photograph,” Joel responds. “It varies from day to day. All of a sudden, for example, I may become interested in butterflies or something else.” Wild horses are always right up there, of course. Then a latest-chapter revelation: “I can say that since I retired almost 10 years ago, I’ve been pursuing the One Great Photograph.”

Incidentally, while Joel’s principal residence is in Yucaipa, he has a second home in Lake Arrowhead, which his parents originally purchased 65 years ago. He’s not the sole proprietor, however. Instead, he shares ownership of this getaway home with seven siblings. That said, Joel is the only award-winning photographer in the bunch, and just one brother emulates his love of sushi and sashimi.

The artist’s photography is on display and for sale at the Mountain Arts Gallery on the lower level of Lake Arrowhead Village. For more information and images, visit joels.photos.