Of his very first photo Jason’s interest in what the guy phone calls “the newest deep recesses of the notice” is found on display screen
The newest single kid riding his bike doing Ashland, Oregon, capturing having an excellent Walkman to their shoulder continues to be having Jason now. One to need only honor the fresh new grayscale pictures out of dated items the guy produced on many years twelve – rusted coffees cans and you may dilapidated barns shimmer with spooky benefits just like the we imagine the lifetime of the people so you can just who it fall in, while the inevitability out of dying and 
rust. Since the a young teenager, he arranged 1st out-of plenty of nights photo – consumed in a cemetery, not less – having fun with an effective Minolta 35mm camera and you will an excellent darkroom put from a keen old Spiegel directory.
Jason’s choice to pursue picture taking while the a career took place, of the many metropolitan areas, a poetry class at University out of Oregon
Increased on an after-college eating plan of clips including the 3rd Guy, The afternoon our planet Stood Still, Caligari, Frankenstein, and you can Complete strangers on a train, Jason grown a fancy early on for the storytelling electricity of black-and-white imagery. Right here was an environment of variations pared down to the substance, and you may letters which endured for over by themselves. One shadowy shape that would follow Langer well toward his very early thirties are the loner men character characteristically starred by Humphrey Bogart. He seems during Jason’s work – an excellent fedora and trench coating when you look at the shape, a good curl out of tobacco floating around, music with the a rain swept street.
In his own terms he was “a little town guy in the big-city”, and yet the experience decided a good “homecoming”, as though he’d lived there before
The guy remembers studying Keats’ “Ode on the an excellent Grecian Urn”. During the Keats, the guy found good kindred soul and you may an articulation out-of something which at that time he sensed however, wouldn’t complete: “Read tunes is sweet, but men and women unheard / Is actually sweeter.” Such as Keats’ hypnotic poet, Jason holds to a view of ways once the an effective liberator out-of the brand new creative imagination and you can a portal to help you religious facts. So it poem, particularly, may serve as an important touchstone for understanding Jason’s proclivities, plus their layout. When he peers to your eyes from a good Victorian doll or the new coated face off a spiritual icon, or as he gazes up at gaudy midcentury marquees inside the Moments Square, Keats’ Grecian Urn flickers dimly in the records particularly a beneficial ghost regarding the past. On top of other things, Keats emboldened Jason to trust his sheer instincts. He supported for instance that it was you’ll, commendable also, as a somber singer looking into face out of demise plus the abyss of energy. Equally popular with Jason, though reduced preferred inside unromantic many years, was the idea expressed by Keats’ poet inside one minute regarding prosopopoeia: “Beauty was knowledge, information beauty”.
Jason eventually finished which have a diploma from inside the photography, shifting to become an enthusiastic apprentice and you can printer ink for the majority regarding the newest Bay Area’s most distinguished photographers and Ruth Bernhard, Arthur Tress, and Michael Kenna, exactly who became an effective lifelong coach and buddy. During this time into the Bay area Jason read tips shell out the latest debts as a musician, whenever you are continuous in order to develop their own voice. Their artwork photos in early 1990s gravitated to the portraits out of something which have an eye fixed on incongruent additionally the ridiculous. His sense of humor is evident regarding the confronts the guy grabs during the weird cities whether levitating with the a wall under the Bay Bridge, became laterally at the back of a pickup truck, otherwise grinning towards an excellent freakishly high jack-o-lantern.
Their big break came in 1994 as he visited Nyc the very first time. Ergo began one of the most productive periods in his occupation, a period hence contributed to his first monograph, Secret Town. The newest York’s historical sites and nattily dressed denizens considering the best park to own Jason’s date-travelling vision. Travel to Paris and you will The brand new Orleans accompanied, and you may together the three towns congealed overall so you’re able to mirror the fresh new artist about the brand new contact lens.