First and Foremost

There needs to be something that is at the top of our goals list. Something that we want to do more than anything else. The biggest goal of our lives. What is it? What is yours? What is mine? I feel fortunate for having an answer. I meet a lot of people who say they...

Projects, Self-Assignments and Games – The Need to Create

We all get motivation from various places. For some it's self-generated. (That would be me.) I have an insatiable need to create work, which I've written about many times. It makes it easy to be prolific. My way is to create goals--projects, self-assignments, games even. Whatever it takes. I have been working on the Roy...

Why Film, Really, Why Kenneth?

I always carry a Nikon DSLR and a 28mm f1.8 lens with me in case I come across a story for my Roy Stryker photo project. And I have a few lenses in in my car, the most useful is a 70-300mm f4-5.6 Nikkor Zoom that is slow, cheap ($75) and small, yet sharp as...

Selfies are Easy. Real Life is Hard.

A friend recently showed me his cousin's family photo book, printed at Blurb or Shutterfly or one of those on-demand online photo printing services. It was nicely printed, and big, about 15x15", so it featured a lot of pictures. He asked if it was made up of photos from a pro, and I looked through...

A 4×6 Brag Book – It’s a Thing!

My partner MaryLee went to Cincinnati for her niece's wedding and took along a small Olympus XA2 35mm film camera loaded with a single roll of Ilford HP5+ Black and White Film. Good setup if you have decent light--the camera sports a 35mm f3.5 lens. She photographed some of the behind-the-scenes that she had access...

My Mantra: Make Your Photographs, We Need You!

I see a world full of people who don't try, who don't seek to have their work seen. Who don't believe in themselves. Who think they have nothing to say. Who are either unmotivated or inertia is just too great to overcome. Or the alternative--those who strive to be like someone else. Their idols. The...

Christmas Morning Photographs (Tuesday Morning, Too!)

I saw someone published a photograph of Christmas morning by Diane Arbus and another one by Elliott Erwitt on Christmas Day. Both were from the 1950s and they were significant because they were...old. They showed us how we used to be. You've heard me say if you read my essays regularly, that photographs only get...

For Good Photography: Access > Gear

It's a simple equation, but good access beats top camera equipment every time. Because we need to be somewhere to make the photo, and where that is matters first, much more so than what camera and lens is in our hands. An example will make this clearer. I was at a friends' house on Christmas...

We Have Choices Today. I Choose the Analog. The Tangible.

Like vinyl records versus digital CDs. Tube versus solid-state guitar amplifiers. Home-cooked meals versus microwaved. Hand-written (or typed) greeting cards versus emails. Film versus digital photography. Traditional photographic prints versus NFTs. I'm in the tangible art business!~Kenneth Wajda I make film portraits using 20th-century techniques and cameras and print in a traditional darkroom. For those...

My Favorite Photograph to Make…

There's an old line in photography that, "My favorite photograph to make is the next one." But it's so true. I sometimes think life would be easier if I were into watching TV and sports, but I'm not. I have an insatiable need to create. I do that with photographs and writing. I also write...