The Value of Monet, John Donne, and Puccini

 

I just spent the last three days attend­ing the Pro Photo Expo, which is held by the Cal­i­for­nia Pro­fes­sional Pho­tog­ra­phers asso­ci­a­tion in Pasadena. I thought the expe­ri­ence was great invest­ment of time; espe­cially since it was my first as a work­ing photographer.

The line-up of notable speak­ers of tech­nique in light­ing, pos­ing, and com­po­si­tion was great to say the least. I do have to say, tech­nique is taught and learned every day, yet it will only improve the tech­ni­cal struc­ture of a cre­ation. It was the teach­ing on artis­tic meth­ods and cre­at­ing con­fi­dence that I specif­i­cally want to talk about.

The thoughts and ideas directly and indi­rectly con­veyed by Kalen Hen­der­son and Arthur Rainville took an approach of fur­ther­ing the per­son. (more…)

Value the Professional Photographer

I began to write a lot of back story as it would be called by writ­ers, but I have decide to spare those that read this.

There are a lot of peo­ple within the pho­tog­ra­phy indus­try that spec­u­late as to the well being and future of what they do. I will say this, and most is just a gut feel­ing with no fac­tual foun­da­tion. Well that is not com­pletely true.  I do have some bor­ing infor­ma­tion that could con­sume sev­eral pages. The photg­ra­phy indus­try will strug­gle along as does the econ­omy. It will sur­vive. How­ever There are those that don’t value the pro­fes­sion because they have a camerea in their phone.…..

There are con­sumers who go by point and shoot cam­era, the slim ones and fat ones that have the lenses that pop out towards the sub­ject of their efforts. There are even point and shoot camers that could be con­fused with what the aver­age per­son would think is a pro­fes­sional cam­era.  Now don’t get me wrong point and shoot cam­eras can take some really fan­tas­tic pho­tos in capa­ble hands.  I have numer­ous pho­tos on my web­site that it took with a Nikon S80. You can’t tell which one they are until you actu­ally print them. On the web most will have a pic­ture show up around 120 dpi for a decent image. It is not the full res­o­lu­tion of anwhere from 240 to 400 dpi or even more depend­ing the the camera.

The point of this is that a pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher has the skill sets to pro­duce high qual­ity images with the best com­po­si­tion pos­si­ble, with the best ligth­ing pos­si­ble.  They know how to manip­u­late a cam­era to acheive these results. There is an intrin­sic value to the knowl­edge of the pro­fess­sional that has been edu­cated at a col­lege or men­tored by a long time suc­cess­ful pro.  There job will be secured for the years to come.

There is another rea­son that I put in a blup on twit­ter that is true “Art is about what the mind sees and what the eyes can’t see”. Pho­tog­ra­phers are artists in every way. Some can take a plate of food and make it so appe­tiz­ing that you want to go out and but it. There are those that shoot wed­dings and make the day a fairey tale story, and peo­ple like me that will cap­ture moments that will never be repeated in my life­time or yours.

I shoot por­traits and wed­dings, but my pas­sion is land­scapes. I have been shoot­ing sun­sets lately. Every­day this week has been dif­fer­ent, some sim­i­lar­i­ties, but then again the sun­set we not even close.

The value of the pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher is in the knowl­edge that has been  learned from the time he or she pick up their first cam­era. The expe­ri­ence gained from every under or over expo­sure.  The pastience to setup to amke sure the light is right or for that mat­ter to wait for the right light. to wait until the mot­ment is revealed through the eyes of cre­ativ­ity. The bad angle, how the sub­ject was placed in the frame, the lack of focus, bad back­grounds, every­thing that makes up a photograph.

So value what the pro­fes­sional can do for you. some are new, some are old and there are many inbe­tween that cre­ate art with the press of a shut­ter release.

I will be hon­est, I have met pho­tog­ra­phers that were not good at what they did. The gals that did my sons wed­ding had every­one fac­ing into the sun, eyes squint­ing, watery, frowns, and such that very few pho­tos turned out and never to be recap­ture again. I fault them for not know how to shoot in venue that had many options, to cre­ate and cap­ture the spe­cial moment that is only once in a life time.

So go ahead and be crit­cal if you want but not every­one is a pho­tog­ra­pher by trade.

Copyright Infrigment: The Photographers job isn’t a cake walk!

Sev­eral days ago, I was read­ing about copy­right infringe­ment and it really put me into a neg­a­tive mind­set. I don’t like hav­ing in a neg­a­tive mind­set so I cranked up some tunes and began map­ping out a local trip I want to do soon. This leads me to why I am writ­ing.

I think about being a pho­tog­ra­pher and the enjoy­ment the job brings. I was pon­der­ing what peo­ple think the job is like. I imag­ine they might think a few of the fol­low­ing things, which I think, are misperceptions. 

The first is that it is a glam­orous job. Maybe for some pho­tog­ra­phers, it may be glam­orous if they work in the fash­ion or adver­tiz­ing indus­tries. I am not sure since I don’t do either.

Being a pho­tog­ra­pher is easy; you just push a but­ton after you frame things up. I don’t think so. How many peo­ple know how much light the moon puts out on aver­age, what the set up would be for a shot with the moon in the back­ground? What shut­ter speed, aper­ture, Film speed ASA (ISO for dig­i­tal folk).

I am not sure how things unfold for other pho­tog­ra­phers but this is a sam­ple of one day for me to shoot a sun­rise in Joshua Tree National Park. I woke at 2am sun­rise is around 4:45 am it’s a 2-hour drive to the loca­tion I want to shoot. I drive down­ing a cou­ple cups of good ole Star­bucks cof­fee. Make a pit stop.

 I arrive at smoke tree wash, which gives a view of the Eagle Moun­tains to the east. I trek through the desert a lit­tle bit it’s now dawn, which is about a half an hour give or take before sun­rise for those that don’t know. Set of the tri­pod pull out the cam­era, take some low light shots to see if the humid­ity in the air is going to cre­ate too much haze to shoot with­out a fil­ter then I decide which fil­ter I’m going to use.

 Any way I set up. I look around at other areas to sur­vey the var­i­ous struc­tures sur­round­ing me. I look at the light cast at dawn and it usu­ally reveals most loca­tions that will feel the morning’s first direct sun­light. Will a hill, tree, moun­tain, val­ley, out­build­ing be a poten­tial sub­ject. Some­time only time will tell. It’s is about 20 min­utes before sun­rise and there are clouds in the dis­tance, they are turn­ing color. I have learned through some meter read­ings what the illu­mi­na­tions is going to be like for var­i­ous col­ors. I take one or two shots and maybe make a minor adjust­ment. I rarely use a meter since the light changes so quickly.

I am for­tu­nate as I look through the viewfinder, there is a band of clouds on the hori­zon and you can see them well in low light, they are going to make for an inter­est­ing sun­rise. I patiently wait and dou­ble check every­thing, expo­sure and the scenes I want to get. I haven’t shot in the west­ern Col­orado Desert before so the expe­ri­ence is new. It seems like it is get­ting hazy out. Hmmm okay maybe some adjust­ments’ with fil­ters not sure which way I am going to go. I’ll play it by ear besides; it will only take a sec­ond to put a fil­ter on.

The col­ors begin to change from the dark blues to lighter shades; the vibrant col­ors begin to show. I shoot check­ing behind me if there is some­thing spec­tac­u­lar that I might be miss­ing. Not so far though. The sun comes up and pro­gresses through the clouds, the thin­ner ones almost seem to melt away. Except for a sev­eral long stub­born bands that seem to hold it, back. It’s com­pletely above the hori­zon now and the haze is gone. The heat burns into my skin; there isn’t a chill in the air anymore.

I shoot for about 15 min­utes, the changes in col­ors are gone, and the sun is well above the moun­tains to the east now. Hmm is say to self what now, it 2 hours back for less than thirty minute this morn­ing, it seems lack lus­ter, but it’s not. I have been here since I was a kind so I explore the park, not much dif­fer­ent from the Sonora desert other than the saguaros are well to the east. Cholla’s, Ocotil­los, sage, cre­osote, and even a few snakes too.

Guys are out try­ing to learn how to free climb with a safety rope. I wasn’t really inter­est and was look­ing for the nature stuff more than peo­ple. Then I came across the gran­ite mon­strosi­ties. There they were, as if God had tossed them across the desert floor like they were odd shaped mar­bles. Ah ha, I spent the next 6 hours shoot­ing; it’s only in the 80’s. I check my map and decide to stop at a park­ing area and do a lit­tle explor­ing. I take the back­pack, tri­pod, and two bot­tles of water.

 I take off on what I esti­mate to be about a three-mile trip. Cool an eagle and a lot of boul­ders the size of medium sized office build­ings. One looks like an alien with a really big head and lit­tle body. There are some inter­est­ing shots but the light is ugh harsh, shad­ows are almost non-existent now since the sun is high. I decide to head back but I am going to take another trail that par­al­lels to orig­i­nal trail. I run across some dead oaks, Man­zanita, and then some small cac­tus are still flowering.

I am hik­ing down a wash now and real­ize that I am on the north side of a small chain of hills about three to four feet high and they have to be a haven for rat­tle snakes and other creepy crawlies. I really don’t want to run across. I hike about another 20 min­utes and I know the SUV has got to be on the other side about now. I am out of water and I really don’t want to climb nor scram­ble through rocks. How­ever, if I keep going I am going to be tak­ing a risk of becom­ing dehy­drated and that is not going to happen.

Up I go, then down I go and about a mile back to the car, I pound a quart of water, and get the gear stowed away. Ugh, Now I am hun­gry so I eat and watch other peo­ple trek off into the desert. I looked at the map again and if I had headed on about another three-quarters of a mile before I had turned around I would have ended up at my next des­ti­na­tion, Skull Rock.

Well I can ram­ble on about going out into the wild, look­ing around and shoot­ing what I see, but it has changed a lot since then. The focus has changed; I def­i­nitely see things much dif­fer­ent. There about a thou­sand places in the Joshua Tree NP that I want to shoot and it would take about two or three weeks to do it, camp­ing get­ting up early. Hit­ting the Golden hours each day and keep­ing an eye out for what oth­ers don’t see. It’s the art, the pas­sion for art that makes me do it, the cam­era for me is the tool, and the print is the medium for the expres­sion of what I see.

I see some of the most spec­tac­u­lar sun­sets in the world here in Cal­i­for­nia, almost every day there are the con­di­tions for one kind or another. Clouds, haze, windy clear skies to where you can’t see the dust sus­pended very well. I have been from South­east Asia to the Mid­dle East. I have seen sun­set for a lot of places in-between. I think the sec­ond clos­est for sun­sets is any desert. Tuc­son Ari­zona had a sun­set where the sky was tan­ger­ine orange from hori­zon to hori­zon, and it was gone in the moment it took to go get my camera.

 I have gone on long enough, I have I think even lost focus on what I started to say. Being a pho­tog­ra­pher is not easy work, to haul around any­where from a few pound of gear to 30 lbs, and that include water, and food and extra stuff. More often than not, I end up in a wilder­ness areas. I learned while I was in the Air Force to be pre­pared. You may not need some things but if you have it you will get home, maybe not today but you will get home, and that is why the pack is not just a few pounds. 

It is still the pas­sion that takes a man to places that peo­ple don’t get to go, to take a por­trait for a wed­ding,  a cou­ple after they have been mar­ried for a few years and in each instance cre­ates a piece of art. I don’t know how much more to tell you , other than I left out the time that a pho­tog­ra­phers eyes scru­ti­nize every frame for the qual­i­ties he is look­ing for in each one he exposed. That is not the excit­ing part to some but it is where the artist in the pho­tog­ra­pher final­izes his cre­at­ing. In his later years, Ansel Adams use to spend about 60 per­cent of his time in the dark­room cre­at­ing the mas­ter­pieces that we see today.

I have some final words for you. Being a pho­tog­ra­pher, is it this some­thing that you want to do, or you can appre­ci­ate? Do you under­stand that not every­one can do it? I can’t nor do I have the desire to be a fire­fighter. It is not my gift or pas­sion. So granted you may have a nifty lit­tle point and shoot cam­eras or big­ger. You may take nice fam­ily pho­tos that cap­ture some fun mem­o­ries, but do the pho­tos look like a piece of art. I ask are you will­ing to use the care to cre­ate some­thing more that what you see in the dime store album. If not don’t quit your day job because this isn’t for you. What you do is not for me.

I hope you have enjoyed the sights along this jour­ney of words.

Images Without Borders — It could be you or even me

         

          When you are faced with sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances your per­spec­tive is changed. I have expe­ri­ence nat­ural dis­as­ters and have been for­tu­nate that my homes in each of the events were spared from damage.

           The most dev­as­tat­ing event was Hur­ri­cane Hugo. I was liv­ing in Sumter South Car­olina at the time. The view the morn­ing after the storm was like a world war II bat­tle­field. Homes buried by debris and trees, pow­ers lines downed and the poles snapped at ran­dom points.

           I can’t imag­ine being in a loca­tion where there is no infra­struc­ture, build­ings, roads and more turned to rub­ble, liv­ing in the open, no pro­tec­tion from the ele­ments. So live the peo­ple of Haiti’s Port-Au-Prince. The sim­ple activ­i­ties of mak­ing a meal are a big deal since you don’t know where the food to pre­pare will be com­ing from. 

            I find that the least that I can do at this point is time beside the dona­tions I have made is to give from what I do. Take the time to visit Images With­out Bor­ders. You will receive some­thing that can hold a mem­ory, and help those in need, and right now the proper med­ical care , beside food and water is an urgent neces­sity. If you are not able to con­tribute then refer the site to your fam­ily, friends, asso­ciates, and neighbors.

           Our coun­try alone has 305,529,237 and if you take con­ser­v­a­tive mar­ket­ing per­cent­age of roughly 20%  (61,105,847) can donate some money that is an esti­mate that the peo­ple in the pool have at least 100 that can donate to a good cause. This will not elim­i­nate the woes the peo­ple of Haiti with con­tin­u­ally but at least it is some help to get them back on their feet to a lesser degree.  For some it is a choice between a lux­ury for a week or two. Some a month.

I mean if you can live with­out $100 of fast food then….I won’t preach, I am just ask­ing spread the word it is the least you can do. Even if it is by word of mouth. 

Thank You, from my Heart, I again say,

 THANK YOU!

Related Exter­nal Links

• When pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy is illegal
• Money Mak­ing Ideas About Event Pho­tog­ra­phy
• Tips To Improve Your Pho­tog­ra­phy « Out­door Pho­tog­ra­phy Arti­cles …
• FOOD: Weekly Pho­tog­ra­phy Challenge
• Down­load books share and Free Ebooks » Insight Pho­tog­ra­phy Bryan …

Rock Artists — A unique look at youthful creativity or not

It’s eleven some­thing in the morn­ing and it has been rain­ing on and off through­out the day.

Ren­cently I went to this hill loca­tion near my home and I was shoot­ing another sun­set from the nearby van­tage point. I had dis­cov­ered some inter­est­ing items and decided to look and see what else I could dis­cover.  I found a cou­ple dif­fer­ent areas and decided that it would be fun to shoot them while it was rain­ing. I drove a bit fur­ther into the area as it is off road. (I love hav­ing a 4wd vehi­cle, except the time I had to sleep in it because it broke down on top of this moun­tain ridge.)

Well it was rain­ing out and I was get­ting the shots I wanted. I saw some­thing new and I thought let me check this out. I spent about two hours hunt­ing around this vast but com­pact area. It was fun, explor­ing and com­pos­ing the dif­fer­ent shots,  except the sev­eral light­ning bolts that struck near me. Finally the heavy down pour stopped and I finally fin­ished with titles in mind for each of the shots. Have Fun.

A Little Help — a continued effort is needed.

 I have lived through nat­ural dis­as­ters, Hur­ri­canes Helena and Hugo are two. There expe­ri­ence can be life chang­ing. I spent a week with a group of men cut­ting trees up so roofs could be repair and for many just so they could get out of their front door.

This time around I can only offer what I have, these Spe­cial edi­tion prints color or B&W are a Spe­cial Edi­tion Print They will be lim­ited to 100 each, num­bered and Signed with a cer­tifi­cate of authen­tic­ity and the cause. All the pro­ceeds will be donated to Unicef.

Ice­house Canyon is in the San Gabriel Moun­tain near the 4th or 5th high­est peak in the state of Cal­i­for­nia. It is a great place to visit, it has a stream with water flow­ing year round and fall is a won­der­ful time to visit.

 The Mon­soons in Kuwait, which is the only other place I have expe­ri­ence them, can not com­pare to the Mon­soons in Ari­zona. The vicious­ness that the storm emit is scary at times with dri­ving rain so hard you can see two feet in front of you. Other times hail or a con­stant wind blown rain, with amaz­ing light­ning shows.

 There is a sec­tion of beach houses in Crys­tal Cove the will be torn down soon, I think this is one of them. There are more that you can rent for a rea­son­able rate, but they just don’t have that his­toric charm.

 I went to La Jolla for some sun­set pic­tures and tidal pool shots and it was clear all the way there. When I arrived to my dis­may it was com­pletely over­cast. I did know one thing just a half mile north of the scripts pier the surfers would be catch­ing the evening surf.

 Crys­tal Cove is one of my favorite places to go, it is quiet for a south­ern Cal­i­for­nia beach, you can enjoy the ocean and tidal pools, pods of dol­phin pass­ing by, and spec­tac­u­lar sunsets.

Palos Verdes is one of those places you have to visit, it has a really active fault line run­ning through it if I remem­ber cor­rectly, the south­west side has high­way repair going on quite fre­quently. It is the most west­ern point until you get to Mal­ibu and far­ther north. So an unob­structed view of the sun­set is not a problem.

Thank You for sup­port­ing those who are suf­fer­ing in Haiti

We can Make a difference.

I don’t want to sound like a dooms­dayer, what if the 7.0 earth­quake hit San Fran­cisco or Los Ange­les, what would we do as a people. We have responded to Haiti, would we would respond in a greater mea­sure to our own dis­as­ter. First respon­ders and more are trav­el­ing to Haiti to aid in the res­cue and recov­ery of many loved ones. It is unfor­tu­nate that so many have lost their lives. We can make a dif­fer­ence by respond­ing in a self­less way. I ask that you con­sider your sup­port for the peo­ple in Haiti in a sim­ple way, sup­port the Red Cross or any other rep­utable orga­ni­za­tion with a sim­ple dona­tion. The power of many giv­ing a lit­tle is greater than a few giv­ing a  lot. So give a lit­tle; $5, $10, $15, $20 is all that is needed. Here are a few links where you can help. Many peo­ple are giv­ing their time and money so let’s band together and help. 

http://magcloud.com/browse/issue/57597 you can buy the first issue here. 

www.unicefusa.org  

www.red­cross.org 

http://american.redcross.org

Let’s get started!

Well I am restart­ing a per­sonal project I began work­ing on last year in late July, #OntheStree­tAn­In­vis­i­blePeo­ple. Yet the story is much broader than what the title states. So the vision I have for the project has changed. It began with so shots like these, how­ever it will broaden out to a larger scale.  I am going to spend some time of the city of Corona and then River­side. I think the last two years have taken a toll on these cities.

Short and sweet and so should the rest of the posts for the year hope­full will be that way and I’ll fill up the page with some great pho­tos.

My Chinese calendar – the year of the Photographer

Pre­lude to this year’s cal­en­dar: The last two years have been a downer for many. It started with the mort­gage mar­ket crash, which in turn causes the Wall Street crash, and in turn, ris­ing gas prices, which relates to ris­ing prices of every­thing else. You have peo­ple los­ing jobs because of the crashes and we find out greed is alive and well in our coun­try because you have nota­bles like Bernie Mad­off, funny last name “Mad off”, he really “Made Off” with people’s money. People’s out­looks were depressed and filled with woe and anguish of what are we going to do. Unfor­tu­nately, some saw extremely dim futures.

I could have taken that view­point too. Yet when I was laid off from what I thought was a secure posi­tion I didn’t take the atti­tude of I am more valu­able than so and so. Nope! I took the imme­di­ate atti­tude of this has got to be God giv­ing me a push in the direc­tion my life is sup­posed to go. I knew the direc­tion was a busi­ness of my own and had been putting together the things I needed even before it came to that won­der­ful day. I haven’t looked back and have tried to dis­tance myself from that history.

 The year com­ing: It would be a mis­take to dis­tance myself from the his­tory of the last ten years, I have had a lot of things hap­pen; divorce, mar­riage, kids get­ting mar­ried, and the list goes on. I learned about myself through those years and I am grate­ful for every dif­fi­cult moment. I rel­ish in the strug­gles of going from a high pay­ing job to near poverty back up to a median pay­ing job. I have learned about being a busi­ness owner through a friend who strug­gled with his own busi­ness. I worked from him and he laid me off. I am always thank­ful for the job.

What­ever we are doing, we have to look back and say wow, made it through that! What this year has in store? We will only know as indi­vid­u­als. I truly believe that we indi­vid­u­ally hold the keys to our future (yes that is very cliché) yet it is true. We can­not rely on oth­ers to make a future for us. We have to get out there and tell peo­ple who we are.

The year of the pho­tog­ra­pher: The time when the cre­ative scene is aggres­sive, bull­doz­ing, alive, filled with vital­ity rem­i­nis­cent of years past but new. Those who will sur­vive won’t wait for oth­ers, they allow their voice to be heard and seen. They cre­ate the life they desire. It may be ironic; the Chi­nese cal­en­dar this year is the year of the Tiger.

There have been enough arti­cles (Photog’s-PE’s Must Reads if you have read enough or need to) about what peo­ple should do, I think we just need to stop being afraid and do it. There are so many excuses; the econ­omy won’t this and that, bull hooey! It is a big world out there and there is so much to do. So take the time to fig­ure out what you are going to do, read and lean so you know how to do it and ask you pro­fes­sional peers for their help it you need it. They are more than will­ing to help. So pur­sue the pas­sion the makes you come alive.

Have I made it clear…

I am look­ing for­ward to this year and what it has in store, which for the most part is depen­dent on how pas­sion­ate I am about fine art photography. If you base a dec­sion on the arti­cle I read at A Photo Edi­tor about the best and worst jobs in 2101 it seems like being pho­tog­ra­pher, may be even worse a fine art pho­tog­ra­pher,  is not the way to go. It doesn’t pay well, etc. …. one thing to con­sider is the sta­tis­ti­cal infor­ma­tion  doesn’t include infor­ma­tion on the major­ity of pho­tog­ra­phers in this coun­try, or for that mat­ter around the world. If you were to poll pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­phers, I think most of them would respond with I do it because I love con­vey­ing… and It is not about the money, I would like to make good money, but it is not about the money…it can be a good liv­ing no mat­ter the level of earn­ings… it is my pas­sion in life….It’s all about the art….

So I am a pho­tog­ra­pher for sev­eral rea­sons; one I Love what I see and want to share with oth­ers. It is what dri­ves me to wake at all hours of the day to see what is out there. It doesn’t make me tired, but I have healthy bound­aries. I share an office, if you want to call it that, with who knows how many peo­ple and we don’t get in each oth­ers way, and it’s really big too! I do have an office in my home that is com­fort­able and reflects what I like.

So this is an appeal to those that read this, I need some help, visit my web­site, tell your friends about it, share it with co work­ers, and those you are friends with, I am not ask­ing you to buy any­thing, but if you do, hey that’s awe­some! My point is I need to get my name out to the peo­ple who can afford to buy  a print they see and want for their home, office, or they like my style and want to com­mis­sion me to cre­ate a piece of art for them. I just want help spread­ing my name around. If you do help, then thanks, I will return the favor and God Bless you!

O yes, one last thing, I am also diver­si­fy­ing this year to include many other generes’ of photography

2010

I am a fickle writer, I started some­thing yes­ter­day and just deleted it; it only served for the moment and really didn’t have any impact on the title. Now I have done it twice!

Okay so you get me with­out out­side influ­ences. My thoughts and words. I am look­ing for­ward to this year with some hope­ful projects. I am excited! I think every­one should be excited. I am going to con­tinue Route 66, Ice House Canyon , #On The Street An Invis­i­ble People#On The Street An Invis­i­ble People.

New Projects I am devel­op­ing will be col­lec­tions from var­i­ous loca­tions through­out Cal­i­for­nia and beyond (hope­fully beyond Cal­i­for­nia). Loca­tions I will def­i­nitely be shoot­ing sev­eral times this year will be; Ice House Canyon, Tahquitz peak-devils slide trail, Sui­cide Rock, Mt Baden Pow­ell, Crys­tal Lake (if I can get there), Mojave Desert (it has lots of options), Ford dry lake bed, sun­rises and sun­sets, Cal­i­for­nia coastal loca­tions, Pine Moun­tain, Tele­graph Peak, John Muir trail, Mt Whit­ney and The Great Divide. I have a few more to add to the list but as you can see, there is a lot to do.  Oh yeah, if you are inter­ested in fund­ing a 3 week trip to Berlin, Ger­many, let me know. So much has changes since I was there as a teenager. Wish I had my dad’s cam­era then.             

I will be adding to the busi­ness of Land­scape fine art. I am going to open myself up to doing loca­tions por­traits and some wed­dings. The diver­sity comes with know­ing that right now I can’t make it on the Land­scape art alone. I am look­ing for­ward to the loca­tion por­traits because they pose chal­lenges that are not encoun­tered in a tra­di­tional stu­dio. Besides, I like break­ing the rules of tra­di­tion.

My encour­age­ment to those who are look­ing to work as a pro­fes­sional pho­tog­ra­pher, edu­cate your­self if you haven’t gone to school to get a FA, MFA. Take some classes, there are some great books on pho­tog­ra­phy. I would encour­age any­one that is look­ing to do fine art pho­tog­ra­phy of any kind to read the series of books by Ansel Adams on the Cam­era, Neg­a­tive, and The Print. I would spend time study­ing the work of the greats Like Ansel Adams– you will any­ways if you read any of the series books. A few more I would rec­om­mend are Eddie Adams, Irv­ing Penn, Anne Ged­des, Dorthea Lange, Jim Krantz.

The things I would learn would be about light and light­ing; dark room tech­niques, basic com­po­si­tion, and how to achieve nat­ural pho­tos through pos­ing. Light is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant as it has the most effect on what a pho­tog­ra­pher cre­ates. Yes, pho­tog­ra­phers cre­ate. If you look at it in terms of when you press the shut­ter release that you are cap­tur­ing an image that is true, but in doing so did you cre­ate an image that con­veys an emo­tion, or mes­sage? That is it for now. If you have any ques­tions please feel free to email me or ask in a comment.

One last thing, I am putting together some dif­fer­ent prod­ucts for this year. I will announce the other prod­ucts as the month progresses.

The first will be a col­lec­tions pack­age. It will be an archival box and will con­tain 10 8x12 or 11x16 prints. The col­lec­tion series will deter­mine whether it will be sil­ver gelatin or fine art prints. Included in each set will be two pairs of white gloves, a cer­tifi­cate that tells the story of the col­lec­tion series. The idea behind the sets is that they can be dis­played in frames or that you can view them in a very inti­mately. It is one thing to see a pint under glass on a wall; it is another thing to have it in your hands.

Related Exter­nal Links

• When pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy is illegal
• Money Mak­ing Ideas About Event Pho­tog­ra­phy
• Tips To Improve Your Pho­tog­ra­phy « Out­door Pho­tog­ra­phy Arti­cles …
• FOOD: Weekly Pho­tog­ra­phy Challenge
• Down­load books share and Free Ebooks » Insight Pho­tog­ra­phy Bryan …

Why I love what I do part 2

 

I have taken some time over the last 9 months, and have come to real­ize that I really, I mean really love what I do. I have not even come close to begin­ning work on the num­ber of projects I have slated for this year and it doesn’t even include the fact I will be doing loca­tion por­trait shoots. I mean, I love the out­doors and peo­ple and if you put them together the com­bi­na­tions is going to result in art that you can put almost any­where in your home if it is planned out right. I am excited.

What I am not excited about are the last cou­ple of days I have been work­ing on a really truly com­plete and accu­rate busi­ness plan. Yep, I’ve been work­ing on a busi­ness plan. The pho­tog­ra­phers’ worst night­mare is doing any­thing related to busi­ness man­age­ment. They can go cre­ate art, come back proof, and edit with­out food or very lit­tle sleep. I do it all of the time when I go to the beaches or other loca­tions. I do it quite often, get up at two in the morn­ing drive for sev­eral hours to get to where I want to go, shoot sev­eral hun­dred frames over 6–10 hours then drive home. Load the prints into my cat­a­log and back them up, and start proof­ing. Oh I almost for­got, some places I go I will hike any­where from five or six miles up to twelve miles with as much as two miles of ver­ti­cal gain and loss. So some­times, the days are stren­u­ous. I love it though. It is like a drug. Give me a cam­era of any kind and tell me to go shoot and I am on it. Busi­ness plan, it not the kind of details I like. LOL

You still ask why do I like it. Well let me ask you this, if you could do any­thing you desired, what would it be? Why? Just don’t give the quick answer either. Oh one other para­me­ter, leave money out of the equa­tion of why you want to do it. Yes, money will come with the pur­suit of any­thing it may not be a lot but it will be satisfying.

I look out my office win­dow or the liv­ing room win­dow and I will see a palette of color greater than any color pro­file on a com­puter. It is won­der­ful, to go to the moun­tains and find and aban­doned stamp mill used for pro­cess­ing ore. The beach house long ago aban­doned. The sun­rise, to feel its power radi­ate through your body. It is not about just shoot­ing, or end­less hours of edit­ing, it is about see­ing life, the col­ors, or the lack of it. Maybe you’ll see what I mean.

Shameless Self Promotion

I have spent the Last cou­ple of weeks read­ing a vari­ety of arti­cles, being a part of webi­nars and sum­mits. I recently read “Riley & His Story by Mon­ica Haller” at “A Photo Edi­tor” which I think is wor­thy of everyone’s atten­tion. What we are expe­ri­enc­ing in our coun­try is not new.  It has occurred repeat­edly in vary­ing degrees of sever­ity. If you read the begin­ning of Franklin D Roosevelt’s address to the nation ask what is dif­fer­ent then com­pared to now. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1933

I will address them with a can­dor and a deci­sion, which the present sit­u­a­tion of our Nation impels. This is pre­em­i­nently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from hon­estly fac­ing con­di­tions in our coun­try today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will pros­per. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unrea­son­ing, unjus­ti­fied ter­ror which par­a­lyzes needed efforts to con­vert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a lead­er­ship of frank­ness and vigor has met with that under­stand­ing and sup­port of the peo­ple them­selves which is essen­tial to vic­tory. I am con­vinced that you will again give that sup­port to lead­er­ship in these crit­i­cal days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours, we face our com­mon dif­fi­cul­ties. They con­cern, thank God, only mate­r­ial things. Val­ues have shrunken to fan­tas­tic lev­els; taxes have risen; our abil­ity to pay has fallen; gov­ern­ment of all kinds is faced by seri­ous cur­tail­ment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the cur­rents of trade; the with­ered leaves of indus­trial enter­prise lie on every side; the sav­ings of many years in thou­sands of fam­i­lies are gone.

The point sim­ply is, we have a new year before us and it is up to each indi­vid­ual to make the most of the year to the best of their abil­i­ties. We have to ignore the neg­a­tive men­tal­i­ties, the naysay­ers should have no influ­ence in our lives, and we should sur­round our­selves with peo­ple that see and seek oppor­tu­nity.  There will be fail­ures, low, and highs. We need the con­stant plateaus though. They bring growth, strength, and peace.

We have but one thing that stands in the way of suc­cess, the unbe­lief in our­selves. So, believe, believe, believe in your­self. Prac­tice it every day for the first month of the year and there will be new lev­els of suc­cess in your life.   You should know I am not one of the pros­per­ity peo­ple like Tony Rob­bins or the sort. I am a real­ist and I do believe in myself and what I can do, that belief has a great impact on how peo­ple per­ceive me.  FDR is right, in the cen­ter of his speech is “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unrea­son­ing, unjus­ti­fied ter­ror which par­a­lyzes needed efforts” put aside fear and take a step for­ward, only you can do it.

This year I will shame­lessly pro­mote my work and be proud of it and if you think any less of me or any­one else that does ….it is your life. This year I will be writ­ing much more and hope­fully it will ben­e­fit you.

Related Exter­nal Links

• When pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy is illegal
• Money Mak­ing Ideas About Event Pho­tog­ra­phy
• Tips To Improve Your Pho­tog­ra­phy « Out­door Pho­tog­ra­phy Arti­cles …
• FOOD: Weekly Pho­tog­ra­phy Challenge
• Down­load books share and Free Ebooks » Insight Pho­tog­ra­phy Bryan …

The End of the Year and the Beginning of New

In the past few weeks, I have been rework­ing my web­site and work­ing on my plans for the com­ing year.  The last eight months have taken me through highs and lows; yet when I look back I am thank­ful for two things. The first is Gods pro­vi­sion in my life, and for my wife’s uncon­di­tional sup­port. It has been mem­o­rable with my old­est son’s wed­ding, my stepdaughter’s first com­mer­cial shoot. That doesn’t omit the other expe­ri­ences within the rest of the fam­ily like my fathers and mother in laws suc­cess­ful bat­tle against cancer.

I will not make any excuses for my open­ness about God, some may be turned off because of it, but I would say lets hook up and get to know each other. If after we have spent time together, and you still don’t like me that is okay.

I am def­i­nitely a man try­ing to just fol­low the path in front of me. I have some projects/ works in progress and hope you join me by read­ing about what is hap­pen­ing.  There is “#On The Street an Invis­i­ble Peo­ple”;  “Route 66” a project that I started late this year. Each of these will con­tinue into the com­ing months. I look for­ward to God’s guid­ance with each of these projects.

I have also started my “col­lec­tions series” which is a series pho­tos from var­i­ous loca­tions. An exam­ple is Ice House Canyon in the Ange­les National For­est. I started with fall and now that win­ter is def­i­nitely in full force, I will be trav­el­ing up the canyon to cap­ture the beauty of win­ter is a very peace­ful place in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and some spec­tac­u­lar views. Then there is La Jolla, Tahquitz Peak and Dev­ils Slide trail, and the burn areas of the San Gabriel moun­tains at the south west­ern sec­tion of the Ange­les National for­est. Peo­ple could do a lot to help in these areas, they have left trash behind that causes damage.

I think that God gives each of us a gift and a pas­sion. My encour­age­ment to every­one is to use your gift­ing with pas­sion and fer­vor. Fol­low your pas­sion with every­thing you got. Don’t let up, keep push­ing and if you are hav­ing a tough day, look to heaven. There is always a sil­ver lin­ing to every situation.

Why I love what I do

I remem­ber as a very young teenager stand­ing in my father’s make shift dark­room. He would place a frame from the long strip of neg­a­tives into its proper posi­tion on the enlarger. He would use a piece of white paper that rep­re­sented the final size he wanted the print to be. He would adjust the size of the expo­sure and make sure the focus was set exactly like he wanted it. He would spend seem­ingly end­less min­utes to pro­duce one pic­ture and then place finally place a sheet of photo paper in the proper posi­tion. He always kept things in a way to pro­tect the expen­sive stock and irre­place­able negatives.

 He was even more par­tic­u­lar when it came to devel­op­ing those prints, he would refer to notes he took about the pho­to­graph when he took it, the set­tings used when he exposed the print and past dark­room ses­sions. It took time but he was never in a rush. When a print was in the devel­op­ing tray he would only move the print once or twice (I can’t remem­ber which). He said that if you move a print too much it change the way it turned out, if you didn’t move it at all it would develop properly.

I would look at the prints dry­ing, every one of them just as he wanted. Rarely did a print not turn out the way it was sup­pose to, if one was off, he knew exactly what he needed to do to cor­rect the prob­lem. Yet he would still do every­thing the same way.

I think about what I learned back then, oh about let’s say 38 years ago. I learned about patience and to see what is in front of me. I am still learn­ing today, to be patient, to take the time to see. I think it was the notes about what he saw that trans­lated into the final print that he cre­ated that taught me to take my time to enjoy Gods creation.

 I love what I do, each and every­day because it is a gift not only from my Dad, but also from my Father in Heaven

On The Street An Invisible People

I began shoot­ing this project this past August. I thought it was impor­tant to tell about those who live on the street. It is not easy to do. A short back-story; my wife and I for a period of about three and a half years cooked one Sun­day a month and served the home­less in the area we live.I began shoot­ing this project this past August. I thought it was impor­tant to tell about those who live on the street. It is not easy to do. A short back-story; my wife and I for a period of about three and a half years cooked one Sun­day a month and served the home­less in the area we live.

See more on the ded­i­cated page

The Groove