Weekender Encore: Art & Clarity — A Lifelong Lens on Napa Valley
By Sasha Paulsen
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Art & Clarity
By Sasha Paulsen
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — “People ask, ‘Who is Art and who is Clarity?’” Lowell Downey said. “We take turns.”
The veteran Napa Valley photographer was talking about the photography business that he and Janna Waldinger launched more than four decades ago and the journey they have followed as it has grown and transformed with the times.
Once married, now divorced, Downey and Waldinger remain supportive business partners who have pivoted like ballet dancers to keep up with the changes in their profession.
They met for an interview in their Napa studio to talk about the challenges facing artists who make a living from their work, professionals who follow the arts. Downey describes it as, “our world of photography and video and being a small business as well as creatives.”
From the outside, their 1879 Victorian is a classic Goodman mansion from Napa history; inside it is another kind of museum, walls filled with their artwork. Assignments have taken them around the world, but their work remains deeply rooted in the valley where they decided to make their home 30 years ago.
They married after meeting in 1989, when then-arts writer Downey covered an exhibition at the Hatley Martin Gallery in San Francisco, where Waldinger was executive director. Waldinger was an established third-generation photographer who had learned her craft early on from her father.
“I’d been a photographer since I was 5,” she said.
In addition to her photography, she is a mixed-media artist in fiber, glass and steel who has been exhibiting her work nationally and internationally since 1976.
Downey, with a Master of Fine Arts from New York University, had worked in photography, theater and film, and as a writer and editor. At the time of their meeting, he was the editor of a fine arts magazine.
Together, they formed a business they named Art & Clarity and they quickly outgrew their city space as they photographed portraits, weddings and other events.
“When we started, we were working with Hasselblads,” Downey said. “It was a film world.”
It was Waldinger’s photographer father who warned them, “Don’t miss the boat,” as digital cameras came into being. They were more prepared than many when they got their first offer for a digital assignment, with 10 days warning, to shoot the unveiling of Mastercard in a grand San Francisco ballroom. Accepting the job sent them scrambling to have the right equipment and technological know-how.
“We have been learning through urgency to keep up with the technology,” Waldinger said, in what might be called an understatement.
By 1994, wanting to expand their working space and start a family, Waldinger said they used a compass to map a 100-mile circle around San Francisco. The town of Napa fell within this circle, and a friend alerted them that one of Napa’s historic homes had come on the market.
“It was the bottom of the (real estate) market,” Downey said. Nonetheless, “coming out of yuppiedom; it was a question of keeping on your toes.”
Shortly after their arrival, Waldinger read an article in the paper describing the work of the Napa Commission on the Status of Women. “I noticed that the photos were by a male photographer from out of town, so I called them up and said, ‘I’ve just arrived but I’d love to be able to help you out.’”
For the next three years she volunteered to photograph the women for exhibitions of “unsung heroes.” Through this project, Waldinger met Barbara Nemko who encouraged her to run as a trustee for the Napa County School Board. She has now won seven elections and served for a total of 27 years.
Giving back became part of their personal and professional ethos as they got involved in projects ranging from photographing the Napa River for restoration efforts to promoting the drive to support locally-owned businesses.
“When we arrived in Napa, it was a different time,” Downey said. “There were a handful of professional photographers and videography was still new. There were maybe five excellent photographers. We had plenty of work to share.”
Capturing the evolving world of Napa Valley, they started shooting for Napa Valley Life magazine in 2001 and continue to this day. Other jobs included photographing Napa Chamber events and wineries and shooting portraits for businesses and local government agencies as well as individuals.
They built a backyard studio to provide their subjects with “a safe comfortable space to be in,” Downey said; it was all part of their goal as photographers to “help people show up well.”
“I call it the yummy factor,” Waldinger explained. When subjects are comfortable, “from the inside out you radiate it,” she said. “We elicit and draw out from people authentic happiness. A positive experience, it lights them up. It’s more than just a smile; it’s from the inside out.”
“We had economic struggles,” Downey said. “Fires, earthquakes, companies competing against each other. We kept just saying, ‘We can keep doing this’ — raising a child and being responsible to our community, being a good neighbor, helping out when people need help.”
What it required, Waldinger said, was to be “constantly learning; doing digital books, blending images, desaturation and more saturation.” As new technologies continued to evolve, their goal was “to be on the cutting edge for technical excellence.”
Then everything changed, radically. After the digital revolution, more people were doing their own photography. But with the arrival of the iPhone, “everybody and their mother had a camera all the time,” Downey said.
The Art of Seeing
“When one thing subsides, you have to figure it out,” Downey said. “When we realized that everyone had a camera and the photography market was going downhill, we thought let’s help ‘uplevel’ everybody.”
Their solution was to create custom teaching experiences, introducing others to using their cameras, seeing the world through a photographer’s eyes. They call it “The Art of Seeing.”
“Anyone can take a photo – but can you tell a story?” Downey asked.
World travelers themselves, their photographic assignments have taken them to four continents, from Bolivia to Israel, Chile to Dubai, Switzerland to India and home again. In “The Art of Seeing,” they design sessions for both locals and visitors who want to capture their adventures.
“People want an experience; they want to take the photo,” Waldinger said. “When we are teaching photography, we always say, ‘What story are you telling?’”
They created six-hour and three-hour packages. The former, $4,600 for a couple and called “Make Art Of My Day,” includes a meal, wine tasting and an art book with their clients’ photos.
“We want to give people another way of being outdoors with a camera,” Waldinger said. “People really do spend a lot of time taking photographs. The goal of ‘The Art of Seeing’ ($500 per person or $250 each for three people), is to give people an experience. I call it the art of ‘finding fabulous’ — to help people reframe and use the direction of light, to use their iPhones, to frame, it really makes a difference.”
“We believe that nature is our greatest teacher,” she added.
“We get so much joy providing; another way to look at Napa, from the artist’s point of view,” Downey said. “We thought it would enrich peoples’ experiences to be outside (in Napa Valley) to be separate from the wine.”
Their approach is gaining attention. Clients have included corporate groups here for team building as well as retreats, in addition to families and individuals. The New York Times recently included “The Art of Seeing” as one of the top 10 photography ventures in the world for “tours that turn tourists into photographers.” They listed only three in the U.S., Downey said.
“People come to the valley because of the fine food and wine and the beauty but they don’t know how to access the beauty,” Downey said. “They need something beyond the bottle.”
Today, in addition to “The Art of Seeing,” Art & Clarity continues with client-driven work, “helping with portraiture at Queen of the Valley, supervisors, Redwood Credit Union and the Napa DA’s office.”
“It all comes down to telling stories,” Waldinger concluded. “Lowell and I are life-long learners. It’s always client-driven: what do you need? We’re not just technicians. We are creative thinkers.”
And sometimes, Downey added, it’s a relief to escape from cameras. “I went to a Bob Dylan concert, and they confiscated our iPhones; I was so grateful to be able experience the concert without all these phones in front of us.”
Despite the many changes in their personal as well their professional lives, Downey said, “We see ourselves deeply involved in the community. Jana and I divorced 10 years ago. We have a wonderful son who’s 20 years old. We’re not designed for conflict. Just because we go in a different direction, we still love our son together. We want each other to be successful.”
How do you sustain? How do we wish each other success?
His answer: “This richness of our community is how people rise to the occasion to make it a better place.”
As for Waldinger, she views the future with confidence.
“It’s the time of the disruptors,” she said. “It may seem chaotic, and even frightening, but think about this: If you go into a room where a woman is giving birth, you might think she is dying. Instead, she is bringing new life into the world. What we see right now around us is not the full story.”
“Everything is not as solid as you think,” Downey concluded.
Sasha Paulsen is a journalist and novelist who lives in Napa.
This article was updated on Feb. 18, 2025 for clarity and accuracy.
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Great piece.
Janna and Lowell take us all down a wonderful path of experience and sight. The Victorian backyard is a magical historical place of rest and reflection as if stepping through a door into a reflecting pool.