The Jim Mayfield Collection is the latest addition to the From the Darkroom Collection, featuring images from photographer Jim Mayfield documenting the lives and stories within the Ozarks.
Since 2016, the Springfield–Greene County Library has undertaken the work of preserving and digitizing content from the Springfield News-Leader. In this work, the library has acquired thousands of photo negatives dating to 1945. More than 35,000 of these photos have been digitized to make up the online From the Darkroom Collection, which includes pocket collections from former News-Leader photographers. The latest addition to this endeavor is the Jim Mayfield Collection.
Early Snapshots
Born in 1946 at St. John’s Hospital (now Mercy), Jim Mayfield says he had always been an artistic child. After graduating high school in 1964, he enrolled at Southwest Missouri State College (now Missouri State University) to study art. It was there that professor Robert Johnson used a photo of gravel to demonstrate the interplay between light and subject. The experience inspired Mayfield to pursue photography.
Sometime between 1966 and 1967, Mayfield moved to Los Angeles to study photography at the Art Center College of Design. He attended for a few semesters but was less interested in the commercial photography emphasized by the program. Mayfield instead gained a hands-on education working for mentors like Joe Maddocks at J.H. Maddocks Photography in California, and later under his former professor Robert Johnson at Robert Johnson Art Center.
Developing a Style
In his early career, Mayfield moved around the country. Stops included Arizona, Florida, and an 80-acre property in Cedar Creek. Wherever he didn’t have access to a darkroom, he built one.
Each stop helped develop his unique style. Mayfield shot 120 film on a 6x7 Pentax, and he developed a signature toning process using selenium and sepia to give his images a warm brown tone.
“It was more the way of presenting something that I felt elicited more emotion than a straight black-and-white image,” he says.
In the late 1970s, while working in the Office of Instructional Resources at the University of Florida, Mayfield used the office darkroom at night to play with photo enlargers and introduce surrealism to his work.
Once back in Springfield, Mayfield opened KamRaHed Studio at the encouragement of Bob Noble of Noble Advertising. The studio specialized in production photography for the agency, which was across the hall in the Landers Building. KamRaHed eventually moved to a two-story house on Cherry Street. There, Mayfield took up portraiture, setting scenes with plants and Persian rugs borrowed from friends at Megerian Rug Company. In his studio, Mayfield was able to master photographing subjects in natural light, which has been a staple of his work throughout his career.
“For me, it’s all about that quality of light falling on your subject at the decisive moment in time that makes a great photograph,” Mayfield says in his professional bio.
Work of Record
Mayfield’s connection to Ozarks pop culture runs deep, having gone to school with Ozark Mountain Daredevils members Steve Cash, Steve Canady, and Larry Lee. Eventually, he came to know the rest of the band and spent the early 1970s photographing them at concerts and recording sessions at Caribou Ranch Studios. His image of cook Lydia Bonham became the cover of the 1974 album “It’ll Shine When it Shines.” When the band was recording the “Men from Earth” album, they tapped Mayfield to take the cover photo of Clarence and Roscoe Jones.
Capturing the News
At the encouragement of News-Leader reporter Mike O’Brien, Mayfield joined the paper in the early 1980s. The stint as a staff photographer was his first foray into photojournalism. “Initially, I was a little bit leery,” he says. “I felt like I was imposing on people. Things were happening to them that were emotional, and there I was sticking my camera in their face.”
After a few years, he transitioned to the features department, where he worked for the remainder of his 10 years with the paper. The feature assignments allowed Mayfield to take a more artistic approach with light and composition to tell a story. Many of these images make up the Jim Mayfield Digital Collection hosted by the Library.
“When I was doing the more breaking news, I felt pretty constrained,” he says. “Once I got into features, that changed a little bit. I had more leeway with how I could frame things and compose.”
Documenting Ozarks History
In the early 1990s, a News-Leader assignment delivered Mayfield an unbeatable opportunity. While photographing the groundbreaking of Johnny Cash’s Cash Country Music Theater in Branson, Johnny Morris approached Mayfield with an offer.
Morris was beginning construction on Dogwood Canyon Nature Park and wanted a photographer to live on the 10,000-acre property year-round to photograph the seasons.
“Having the opportunity to live in a little log cabin down by the creek sounded like an ideal situation,” Mayfield says.
Construction was also underway at the nearby Top of the Rock and Big Cedar Lodge, so Mayfield drove his Isuzu Trooper across every inch of the three properties, documenting their early stages.
After two years at Dogwood — a lack of snow doubled the assignment from one year to two — Mayfield moved back to Springfield where he worked for Bass Pro headquarters photographing products for the catalog.
Through a New Lens
“I do things for a few years, and I get tired of it and move onto something else,” Mayfield says with a laugh. “That’s kind of been my life.”
After six years at Bass Pro Shops, he traveled the country for 10 years selling his work at art shows, and then spent another six years as an adjunct professor at Drury University.
Now in semi-retirement, Mayfield photographs only what interests him. Often that’s sights on European river cruises with his wife, Dulcy Stewart. Or, photos of his family, including son James Erin and daughter Autumn Lily. Other days, he reviews his collection of photos and revisits them with digital tools, playing with saturation, exposure, and tone to reflect the brilliance he sees in his head.
“I was always sort of disappointed in how I could present my color work in a darkroom, because I felt like I was limited with what I could do,” he says. “Once everything became digital, that changed.”
Whether in vivid color or black-and-white, Mayfield’s work aims to preserve the stories of the region. In a 2015 News-Leader interview, he noted that he feels a sense of responsibility to capture Springfield before it changes. Now, thanks to Mayfield’s addition to the From the Darkroom collection, his work documenting the Ozarks region is safely preserved and digitally accessible for generations to come.