Meet Bernard Fallon | Artist, Photographer and Teacher

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bernard Fallon and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bernard, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
I have always used my artistic talent throughout my life and after completing a degree at Liverpool College of Art, I knew that photography and travel were to be the best combination in a career. And that’s how it went – with a job at Britain’s leading television magazine that eventually brought me to Los Angeles to cover the Hollywood scene.

However, things do change and my now freelance life career switched to a broad variety of photo-journalism clients. The Hollywood business seemed to get repetitive, and digital photography started to encroach into my film world.

The world of art started whispering to me, and soon began to nag me. I took up painting again and joined some classes at El Camino Community College where the instructors were really interesting. I was introduced to a Russian-Ukrainian school of painting in downtown Los Angeles and to my surprise many of the other students were also professionally working in film, animation, set-design, toy design, art direction and making a living by painting.

Could I do the same and set aside the camera to make a new life through another version of the Arts? That was the challenge, so I worked towards that goal as a balance between income and expression.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
When my parents finally got a television I never missed an episode of a weekly art program “Sketch Club”on the BBC TV. It was hosted by Adrian Hill who extolled the virtues of drawing and painting, while giving demonstrations and friendly advice.

Once a month he invited his audience to enter a painting on a certain theme. In 1965 I won first place and received a signed copy of his book “The Beginners Book Of Watercolor Painting” which confirmed my sense of goodness when I completed any picture.

It was 50 years later that I googled his name and discovered that he was an official war artist in World War One and later helped wounded soldiers heal through engaging in art. In 1942 he coined the term Art Therapy and published a book about it in 1945 called “Art Versus Illness”.

I always knew that deep down that painting was beneficial to me and those who enjoyed my work.

After I moved to Los Angeles in 1979 and worked solidly in photo-journalism, the desire to draw and paint returned after a long absence. I married and we had a couple of kids. Sometimes I attended a local art club meeting where they had a guest speaker or demonstrator. No one seemed to be doing anything with pastel and I loved the immediate color of them, so I started doing demonstrations. Soon I was traveling all over the place to art associations from Los Angeles to San Diego and really enjoying it.

But life takes a few twists and turns and my wife developed terminal cancer. I took up teaching photography in a couple of local schools to pay the bills. After my wife passed away, I decided to dedicate my life to create paintings

I have exhibited my pastels and oils over many years in solo and group shows with a focus mainly on color, both as a plein air and still life painter. The old desire for photo-realism has been superseded by the emotional force of paint and its application. The words of my Liverpool Art College tutors still ring in my ears “get involved with color!”

These days I teach a plein air class through the Palos Verdes Art Center and we paint at different locations throughout the South Bay from San Pedro to Manhattan Beach.

This year I have joined with three other painters in a collaboration called IKON-4, where we discuss various aspects of art and imagery, techniques and painting ideas. we are all plein air and still life artists with a passion to express the truth of seeing and understanding the world around us.

We have a debut exhibition on May 31, 2025 in Redondo Beach. For more information please visit our website at www.ikon4.com

I am also part of another exhibition called Poetry Reimagined opening June 6, 2025.

Details on my website www.BernardFallon.com

I have also been involved with the artistic discoveries of Bondo Wyszpolski, Entertainment Editor of the Easy Reader News, who over the last 5 years has enjoyed creating visual challenges to artists and photographers. His current artistic show called “Are You Seeing What I’m Seeing?” will be held in January 2026 at the Manhattan Beach Creative Arts Center with over 40 artists interpreting a series of semi-surreal suggestions for imagery that Bondo has imagined.Not to be missed!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There is plenty to see here in the South Bay with its many restaurants, beach hangouts and cultural scenes.

Most of my friends include road trips while visiting the Los Angeles area so before or after they go, I emphasize visiting the burgeoning Art Scene here in the Beach Cities and San Pedro.

Of course the main museums are world class and are not to be missed: The Broad, the two Getty museums, The Norton Simon, and the L A County Museum of Art, MOCA, the Hammer, plus others.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I was lucky to have been born with art encouragement throughout my development. From convent school and upwards there were always art classes and sometimes the competitive challenge of “who draws the best picture gets a prize”. There wasn’t much television growing up so I sometimes invented scenes and painted local farms and woodland compositions.

My older brother was good at art, too, and had gotten into the Liverpool College of Art. Our high school art teacher encouraged me to do the same, for where else would I find a world of making imagery?

It was a great place to be with so many like-minded souls. I found myself not the Big Fish in a small pond, but the opposite: a Small Fish in a big pond. It was a competitive place but with Photography I soon found my métier and started to explore the streets of Liverpool with a camera. This ancient city was rich in architecture and people.

I was influenced by the Frenchman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the British social-realism photographers, Bill Brandt and Don McCullin. The city was still recovering from World War II bombing attacks (second only to London) and on top of that a new tunnel was being built under the River Mersey, which involved the demolition of hundreds more houses to accommodate the new traffic approach roads. I wanted to work without flash inside pubs and other interiors, so the Photo Staff guided me through the techniques to shoot in low light. Very valuable as I couldn’t afford a flash unit!

After four years there I did a year at the Leicester Polytechnic School of Photography and the staff and students were quite career minded, and helped me later in London to meet photo editors in the television business.

I spent about five months in 1972 working in a winery in Healdsburg, California. That was also an opportunity to shoot more photos. One day I was introduced to a student of the master photographer Ansel Adams and he transformed how I developed my b&w film negatives. On my way back to the UK, I visited the National Geographic magazine in Washington DC. The photo editor commented warmly on my Northern California portfolio, but added it was time for me to shoot more in color from now on. During that week I also saw an exhibition of b&w photographs by Diane Arbus. Their content was extraordinary, without any color to distract from the portraits staring back at me, the viewer.

Website: https://www.BernardFallon.com

Image Credits
Portrait photo of me, Bernard Fallon, is credited to Patrick T. Fallon

Two b&w photos of Liverpool: Bernard Fallon

Cary Grant photo: Bernard Fallon

Remaining 5 paintings: “Avalon” pastel painting, “P V Peninsula Blue Headland” pastel painting, “New York Steak” still life oil painting, “Iron Man on Moonlit Beach” and “Space Fantasy with Bathtub and Pumpkin” oil painting are all by Bernard Fallon.