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A professional photographer in Los Angeles beginning in 1941, Todd Walker was, by the 1960s, a fixture in the region. He had been peripherally involved in organizing the famous Family of Man exhibition and was acquainted with such well-known photographers of the fifties as Robert Frank, Gjon Mili and Minor White. But, though he experimented relentlessly with his medium even as he earned a living photographing Chevrolets, it was not until he started teaching late in the 1960s that he became involved with other artists and reached maturity in his personal work.

In fall of 1967,” he writes,

…I met Bob Heinecken. Until then I had no inkling of any thoughtful notion of photography in California outside of Monterey/Carmel. We became friends and when Fichter arrived in the fall of 1968 (I met him first at [the] opening of [the Heinecken-organized exhibition] Contemporary Photography at UCLA) the two of them supplied the energy that started what happened subsequently in LA.

In contrast to Edmund Teske, another early experimental photographer who was embraced by the younger artists, Walker realized he had at least as much to learn as to teach. His work changed dramatically as he devoured new technical ideas. Though he remained primarily interested in formal issues, his attitude of discovery and his healthy disrespect for the photograph’s authority were influential.