I am excited to share with you that one of my black and white photographs has been accepted into the Black and White Exhibition at the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City, TX. As well as being selected for the “27”, a final cut of selected photographs to be published in a limited edition book. You can watch the gallery chat video on the gallery site here. When the book is available you can purchase it or purchase the whole exhibition catalog to see all the photographs.
A big thanks to Amanda Smith and Kevin Tully for supporting photographers and their work. They work very hard at what they do and it shows. Also, a big thanks to the exhibition juror Ann Jastrab of the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA for selecting my “On the Hunt” photo to be in the show.
I am happy to say that my image “On the Hunt” has been accepted for inclusion to a group exhibition at the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City, TX. I consider this to be a great privilege to be included with some really great photographers. A big thanks to the juror Ann Jastrab for her time and work in choosing the final images. There will be a catalog, YouTube opening and a book of 27 images selected from the 55 images in the exhibition.
This black and white photograph has been one of my favorites that I have made lately. The gallery will be offering a print for sale through them if you like to inquire about a print. I create the fine art black and white print, sign it and provide a certificate of authenticity to anyone who purchases. I am printing this image in an open edition. It is not a limited edition, but I do document what number the print is on the certificate.
Like most people I have a day job. Photography is my passion and I am lucky enough to be able to make the kind of photographs I want to make on my terms. However, the day job does sometimes cut into my available time to shoot as often as I would like. So I have to be creative with my time.
Recently I relocated from Montana to Minnesota. Some of you may be saying “What?…” I know. Minnesota is not known for it’s grand vistas, towering mountains and crazy cool wildlife. But it isn’t that bad actually. I haven’t been able to explore much yet, due to Covid-19, starting a new job and renovating a really old house.
I wasn’t going to give up though. I work from home, like a lot of folks nowadays, and my new home office is in the basement. It has a garden level view window right in front of my desk. Little did I realize what a perfect wildlife blind this window would be!
A cardinal couple stops by my window often looking for food.
Many times I have early phone/zoom meetings with my colleagues in Asia so I am often at my desk before the sun rises. My home is in a heavily wooded area right next to a huge lake (duh, Minnesota) and I started noticing that many mornings when I was on the phone all sorts of animals were roaming around my garden. They had no idea I was sitting there watching them!
I thought to myself, “here is my opportunity to photograph some wildlife!” I started having a camera with me on my desk every morning when I started work. While I am on calls, muted of course, I can shoot away at all the critters that come by my window. It’s really fun and a challenge.
One of the visiting foxes that stop by my window on their hunting rounds in the morning.
I have the usual squirrels and chipmunks that come by. They have even started to look into the window at me like I am some sort of zoo exhibit for them! Then there are the herds of deer and beautiful birds that stop by. The highlight of my “working” wildlife blind has been the red foxes. They have been really fun to photograph.
Now many of these are not going to be national geographic images. Most are snapshots at best. But I have had a few keepers that I enjoy and have added to my collections. The point is I had to find a way to keep my creativity and my eye exercised to keep making photographs.
Many times I get a comment from someone who sees my photographs like, “Wow, that’s a beautiful picture. You must have a really good camera”. It is common for people, who don’t understand what goes into creating a photograph, to think all a photographer does is frame, focus and push a button.
Also, I get many friends asking me what is the best camera they should buy. This is what leads me to the topic of this post. The camera doesn’t make the photograph. The photographer makes the photograph and the tool is a camera.
It is interesting to me when people think the camera made the photograph. No one asks the chef at a restaurant what type of oven they use, or tell a textile artist they must have an amazing loom.
Rainy day on the streets of downtown Denver. Canon sure shot point and shoot with Kodak black and white film.
Here’s the thing… it doesn’t matter what type of camera is used to make a great photograph. What DOES matter is knowing what kind of photograph I want to make. What is the creative vision? That’s where a photographer starts. I ask myself these questions before I make some photographs.
What is my end goal for distributing the images?
Big prints
Family scrap book
Social media
Magazine
What am I trying to say with my photographs?
Tell a visual story
Create emotion with the photographs
Capture memories
What am I photographing?
Landscapes
Sports
Travel
Portraits
Street
Thinking through some of these questions helps me figure out what the best tool (camera) is to achieve my creative vision for the photograph. For example, if I plan on shooting grand landscapes my needs are very different than when I am shooting candid street photographs. For the landscapes a high quality lens, large sensor/film system could be important. (Unless the goal is to shoot soft ethereal, interpretative landscape photographs. Then a Holga camera may be perfect.) In the case of a street photograph a simple fully automatic point and shoot camera may be perfect for the quick indiscrete capture.
Long exposure of Boulder falls taken with an antique Kodak folding 620 camera
Today’s cameras are awesome feats of technology. So many features that can meet almost any need. Almost. The only things a photographer needs in a camera is the ability to control ISO, shutter speed, aperture and focus. That’s really it. But all cameras have their strengths and weaknesses and knowing what those help me know what camera to use to make a photograph that I am after.
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Black and White photo of Union Station in Denver Colorado
It has been a while since my last post… a long while. In the last few years I have had some very distracting life interruptions. Yes, Covid-19 has affected us all, and many have been greatly impacted. My thoughts and prayers are with all people who have suffered in this time. Beyond Covid-19 I also moved twice, once in the same town and then across two states. I have started a new job as well. Needless to say with all of that happening my photography, and this blog, have suffered from neglect.
Now that I am settled into the new job, I have picked up my cameras again and hit the keyboard. I have a few ideas that I want to implement this year too. Some ideas on subjects to photograph etc. One of them is to start a monthly newsletter. It will contain special content that is not on my social outlets or this site. If you want to get more details on what I am up too and the new work I am producing, sign up below in the Email Newsletter form at the footer of each page on the blog.
Now I am the first to admit that I am not a very good street photographer. I do enjoy it and I am getting better each time I go out in search of that “decisive moment”. I have read a lot of other “how to” and “best gear” blogs and articles about shooting street photos and there are some really great tips and tricks out there. One thing I have learned over my course of photography experiences is that there is not a hard rule on much of anything in photography. (Except exposure. A bad exposure means a bad photograph no matter what else is going right in the photo.) So I take every “do this” or “use this” tip with a grain of salt.
Many of the things you may find online about street shooting is focused around the gear. It seems that the holy grail of a street shooters bag is a Leica of some sort. I don’t know about you, but I can’t really justifying the cost of a Leica to do some occasional street shooting. Of course many street photographers use their phones, which is a good option, and others use mirrorless systems. It seems that what ever you end up using you must like and be proficient at using it. My point here is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to be able to make great photographs. The best camera is the one between your ears.
Monica’s Pizza, one of the best pizza places in the North End of Boston. Shot with Canon AF35ML and Kodak Tri-X 400
I am partial to traditional film photography methods, especially Kodak Tri-X 400 for street photography. So, when I was planning a trip to Boston last year I wanted to find a film based camera that I could use to make some walk around town photographs. I wanted something small, easy to use and cheap. I have a few 35mm cameras I could have used like a Pentax ME Super, or a couple of Nikons and even an Yashica Electro rangefinder. All of those, except the ME Super, are too big and imposing on the streets when you want to photograph strangers on the street. I needed something smaller and less intimidating.
Unfortunately my Olympus XA just bit the dust and quit working on me. I loved that camera. So with that, I decided I was on the hunt for a high quality point and shoot film camera. With this in mind I kept my eyes open anytime I went into a thrift store or an antique shop. In the 80’s and 90’s there were some stellar point and shoot cameras made. Many of them are still highly sought after even today. Cameras like the the Olympus XA, Contax T3, Yashica T5 and others are stellar examples of great point and shoot systems. The fun part about looking for one is that many people think they are out dated and are “no good” any more because of the new digital systems out there, and they just give them away. I found my Olympus XA for $2 at a thrift store because someone gave it away!
Canon AF35ML point and shoot camera for street photography
My efforts didn’t turn up a Contax but I did get my hands on a pretty capable camera at a thrift store. I picked up a Canon AF35ML in almost perfect condition for $10 bucks. It fit my requirements perfectly (almost, I will talk about that in a minute). It was cheap, small and was a “full frame” 35mm camera. I could slip it in my pocket and use it whenever I needed. Even better, my family that was traveling with me, didn’t have to put up with the “wait while I get the camera out” moments. I could just pull it out, point, shoot and be on my way.
Now, for some film. I wanted to use a bullet proof black and white film that could handle any funny exposure issues I might run into with this little point and shoot rig. One of my go to films is Kodak Tri-x 400. I knew I didn’t have much control over what the camera was doing so I needed a film that had a lot of exposure latitude. Another film I could have used was Illford HP5. It is very similar to Tri-x.
One International place Boston. Night shooting was no problem for the point and shoot with Kodak Tri-X loaded.
Once I had some film loaded I gave the little camera a spin… The auto focus was fast and smooth and the shutter has a nice quiet “click” when you hit the button. However, the film advance sounded like some sort of electric grinder, “grrr…ick”. So, there was no way I was getting away clean from some street shot of someone walking by me on the street. Bummer. The noise aside, the images this camera produced were fantastic. With a little practice I quickly understood where this camera excelled and where it falls flat on it’s face.
Puddle reflection
I still use this camera for street snaps and general travel/walk around shooting. My whole point here is that you don’t need to spend a ton of money to make some great photographs. I spent a total of $10 for the camera and about .20 cents a frame to shoot some fun street images. No Leica needed.
Last January, while is was planning my trip to Australia, I was really looking forward to some great opportunities to photograph the opera house in Sydney. In one of my previous posts about being prepared to photograph while traveling I talked about how I tried to plan and be prepared to photograph the opera house during a fireworks display. Needless to say it didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. I was in luck though, I had a few other ideas in mind for photographing the opera house and a few days to get it done.
The opera house is one of those famous landmarks that is photographed all the time. Thousands of people take photos of it. Because the vantage points available to shoot the opera house are limited, many of the photos look the same. I wanted to capture my vision of the opera house, not just the same photo everyone else had. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of fantastic photos of it, but I wanted to look hard for something different. Something that was mine.
Storm over Sydney Opera House. Pentax ME Super, 24mm f2.8, Arista.EDU 400 ISO film
With several days to make my photos, I was able to watch how the light moved throughout the day. I could follow the weather to see how it would change the scene. I got a pretty good sense of the rhythm of the harbor while I was there. Armed with my observations I knew a distinct image would come down to composition.
I always edit my composition in the view finder. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Making sure there is nothing in the composition that did not need to be, is always my goal. I loath cropping my images. For a wide angle shot I had to wait for many of the boats to move clear of my composition. Using a long exposure made for an exercise in patience. Composing for simple lines that create a restful image, is another thing I always try to achieve. Thanks to a great coastal line and the fantastic architecture it wasn’t hard to see for the opera house.
Sails of the Sydney Opera House. Pentax ME Super, 24mm f2.4, Arista.EDU 400 iso film
Changing up the composition a bit, I wanted to get the pattern and lines of the architecture of the building itself. Almost an abstract view of the opera house. Maybe this isn’t a very original image but the haze in the air made the sky turn to a creamy white that complemented the white rooftops of the opera house. This high key image removes any distraction and lets the viewer focus on the repetitive nature of the lines in the architecture. Repetition in design.
Overall I am really pleased with the images I was able to create from this trip. There were many that didn’t make the cut but a handful of them are real keepers.
From my previous post I talked a little bit about a long international trip I took in January. The trip took me to Buenos Aires and Sydney for two weeks of client meetings for my day job. Because I had to pack so light I was limited in how much gear I could take along with me. See my last post on what I took along here.
While planning my meetings I discovered that I would be in Sydney for the 200th celebration of Australia Day. I had no idea what Australia Day was so I did some research and discovered it is similar to the 4th of July in the U.S. “What luck” I thought, “Maybe I could get a killer night shot of fireworks going off over the Opera House!”. That was my plan…
So I began planning my shot by looking at google maps and satellite views of the area looking for good vantage points. They all had to be within walking distance from my hotel since I would be on foot for the entire duration of my stay in Sydney. There are several vantage points in which I could have chosen to shoot from but I narrowed it down to three. I would scout the area before Australia Day to make my final selection.
My chosen vantage point for the fireworks show. iPhone
Now, when I arrived I was able to get to my selected sites and asked some colleagues where the fireworks would be set off from. Turns out this was billed as the largest fireworks display in the world, ever. So I got pretty excited. The plan was for barges to be towed around the whole peninsula that the Opera House sits on in Sydney Harbor. Now I knew what spot I was going to shoot from.
Australia Day arrived and the whole harbor and downtown areas were packed with people celebrating. Wall to wall people, eating, drinking and shopping the temporary craft and art stands that popped up all over. Street performers, corn cob stands and all sorts of carnival type food could be seen every where. The parade of boats in the harbor was so neat to watch. There were tall ships sailing by, followed by fire fighter tug boats spouting water and all sorts of people waving from their boats to everyone on the harbor walk.
Tall Ship motors by on Australia Day boat parade. iPhone
With all of the people and commotion going on I thought I had better get my spot staked out well before others get there to get the spot for a shot of there own. So, I gathered my gear up and headed out to a little spot close to the ferry station, across a little stretch of water where I had a clear shot of the Opera House.
Performers entertain crowds during Australia Day. iPhone
I have had several experiences photographing fireworks in the U.S. So I sort of had this image preconceived in my mind. With that goal in mind I chose my 24mm wide angle lens. This would give me enough coverage to get the reflections of the fire works in the water and the fireworks streaking across the night sky. The weird thing was, the closer it got time for the fireworks the less people there were. Just before the fireworks were supposed to go off I looked around and there was hardly anyone around. Just me and some folks from Georgia. Who knew!
I was ready. Camera on the tripod all set to capture the blossoms of fireworks as they went off one by one. Except… in Australia they set all of them off almost at once! OMG, I was blinded with fireworks filling my view finder! Wow. So, I had to scramble and adjust what I thought would be a good exposure time and start guessing at what I should set my shutter speed to. I got six frames off. Thats it. 6. The fireworks were over.
The only shot that even looked close to what I wanted to capture. Pentax ME Super, 24mm f2.8, Arista.edu 400
Needless to say, I didn’t get any thing like I was hopping for. All the preparation I put into it and zip. But you know what? I had a blast doing it. Sometimes that is how it goes with photography. I am so glad I got to be there and share with the Australians in their celebration no matter if I got my shot or not. Photography can be more about experiences than about the capture.
I have been busy planning my solo exhibit at the Fuzzy Antler in Louisville, CO. on December, 5th. If you are looking for something to do on a Saturday night then you found it! Come on by have some wine, visit with me and take a look at some of my new work and grab some dinner at one of the great Louisville restaraunts.
The post cards are ready to go out to all the “cool kids” I can think of.
If you are looking for a unique holiday gift, one of my black and white photographs may be the perfect fit for a friend or family member. I hope you can make some time to come out and say hi.
I am excited to announce that I will be having a solo show during the Louisville, CO Friday night art walk. I will be showing some of my prints at the Fuzzy Antler on Friday December 2nd. I hope you all of my readers will be able to come and hang out, drink some wine and look at some of my prints. While I was going through my images to choose the ones I will include in the show I came across an negative that I put on the back burner and then forgot about.
Point Loma CA on the horizon with Coronado Island beach in the foreground
The reason this image jumped out at me recently is because it is so simple. The amazing thing about black and white photography is how images get more powerful the simpler they become. When you start striping away all of the unnecessary pieces that fall into your viewfinder the more exciting it gets. Then, once you have only the pieces you want and nothing more is when that magic happens and the shutter is tripped. Stripping an image down to its bare essentials, keeping it simple, will always result in a powerful image. Give it a try.
