Born in the 1960s–The Best Years for Growing Up and Being a Photographer

I was born in 1964. That means the Nikon F2 was out when I was 10, the FM2 when I was 20 and I grew up in the era of Kodachrome film, Fuji Velvia, Ilford HP5 and Kodak Tri-x black and white films, and plenty of wonderful photographers working in those days like Garry Winogrand,...

The Photo I Missed (and Miss!)

I had a fun night with friends last night. We had steak with sauteed mushrooms, roasted potatoes and veggies with some cold keg IPAs. Then afterwards we played a few games of backgammon and cribbage. Lots of laughs when one of us won the game. There's no photo though. I usually bring a Fuji X100...

A Little Art from My World

A lot of photographers have been struggling to find things to photograph in this pandemic-laden world, but I've been keeping busy with a lot of photos for my Roy Stryker photo project, now over five years old and publishing three times a week. The need for creating photos makes the photographic opportunities happen. The muse...

Kenneth Wajda’s Leica (Why it Matters to Me)

The other day I wrote about Ralph Gibson's Leica and why it matters to him, what shooting the Leica versus any other camera means to his way of working, and why once he started with the German brand, he never left. So, I was ruminating about my own workflow and how I use Leicas, but...

Lost Rolls & Rescued Film

There's a company that wants our unprocessed forgotten rolls of film called the Lost Rolls America Project. They ask how many photographers and snapshooters have old film lying around and they encourage them to send them in and they will develop it for their project. This project is aimed at getting those forgotten rolls of...

Ralph Gibson’s Leica

I was driving along today and listening to a podcast and there was an interview with Ralph Gibson. That is one of the great things about the web, the ability to have high-quality podcast interviews with legendary photographers at our fingertips. Two things stood out from his interview. How important it was to commit to...

Adding a Chair to the Portrait Studio

For The Wise Photo Project, I've photographed people either standing or sitting on a red Victorian couch in my studio. So, when it became time to add a chair, I looked to Berenice Abbott for inspiration--she had a favorite chair that she posed people in and so, I went out looking for something similar, something...

Who is the Girl on the Stairs?

I don't know. She's not a relative of mine. You may be wondering why do I have this photograph and other precious memories of some families that appear to be (from clues in the photos) living in Kansas in the early to mid-1900s? Because a family lost them due to an unpaid storage locker. This...

The Problem With Likes (Please Don’t Like This Unless You Read It!)

I have a problem with some LIKES. The ones that remove the "K" and are essentially LIES. Not malicious lies, but ones that don't reflect someone truly enjoying and valuing our work. See, where you get the LIKE matters. If I get a LIKE on this blog post, chances are this post was read. (And...

The Art of the Snapshot (We’re Still Making Them Today!)

A couple of friends over for a BBQ bumping elbows. I have a love for old snapshots. There's something special about those photos that aren't meant for the gallery wall, that aren't going to win awards, but are just simply destined for the photo album--the "open-the-pages-and-reminisce book" that we used to create all the time...