Can You Help Support the Programs and Projects?

If you like the work I do on my YouTube Channel, my Daily Photography Blog Podcast, my 6x6Portraits Photography Blog my RoyStryker Documentary Photo Project and/or my Gifted Art Film Portrait Project and would like to help out with a contribution to support me, become a patron or simply buy me a coffee, please use...

David Burnett Wishes He Had Photos With His Friends

The legendary Time Magazine photojournalist David Burnett said in a recent interview that he wishes he had photos of himself with friends just hanging out when they were young. Photos that he could go back to, but unfortunately they don't exist. He didn't take any and neither did anyone else. (Do you have such photos?)...

The Kind of Photographer, Artisan or Technician

Is there a difference between the photographer who uses film versus the one who uses digital cameras? And I always preface this question with the understanding that there is no right and wrong way with art--neither digital nor film is inherently better than the other, just different ways of working. I was thinking about the...

A New Photography Order – WAJDA’S MANIFESTO

We are at a unique time in the history of photography. The ability to capture an image, stop time and record it as it was has only been a part of human history since 1839, 181 years, which really isn't all that long of a time period considering the ages that humans have been on...

Mr. Cowboy and the Wonder of Old Snapshots

It's a wonder to me that anyone would discard or sell their family photographs, but it happens time and again. I was at a local estate sale yesterday and saw a tackle box full of slide film from the 1970s in boxes and couldn't help but want to have them for my snapshot collection. You...

Why Gear Does and Doesn’t Matter

What is the need for the biggest and best most expensive gear? I was out and about this weekend and saw protesters for the Black Lives Matter movement in my town and made photographs in both digital format with a Nikon D610 and 35mm and 120 film in a Leica M3 and a Rolleiflex 2.8C....

Editorial Truth and Public Trust

While digital photography and technology are here to stay, TRUST is the one thing of utmost importance for news/media companies to maintain as we enter a new world of Deepfakes. [Deepfakes (a portmanteau of "deep learning" and "fake") are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone...

I Don’t Need Anything, But This Leica and This Notebook

Being both a photographer (documentary/street) and a writer (stand-up comedy/screenplays), I came to the realization that there is a correlation between the two. Because both require something of me. See, I carry a Leica and notebook everywhere I go. When my parents took photographs when I was growing up, they took them out at Christmas,...

Nobody Cares What Camera You Use–the Camera Doesn’t Matter

Unless they can see the difference. Many people cannot see the difference. So, many people don't care what camera you use. The camera doesn't define you, or make your work.  You do! You define your work.  Here's proof.  This photographer shot 100 different cameras, and yet the work all looks similar.  Because it's not the...

Family Matters and How Photographs Can Promote Self-Esteem

I was working last week on a photo shoot for a client in Philadelphia, and I traveled across the country so I could bring a full portrait studio, and also so I could stop in towns across the U.S. and make photographs for my Roy Stryker photo project. In my travels, I met a couple...