When the Audience Changes and We Have to Show Proof

A snapshot used to be a simple thing. We used a camera to save a moment from our lives to tuck it away under the bed in a shoebox or in a photo album, so that we could travel back in time at a future date and relive it. We even did it shortly after...

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...

Seeking Denver/Boulder and Front Range Authors for a Gallery Portrait Series

AUTHORS/WRITERSI'm working on a series of large-format black and white film portraits of authors for a fall 2021 gallery show. If you are one or know one, would you please message me. I'm looking for published authors, both young and established.You can see some of my 4x5 portrait work of people in other professions made...

“But People Are So Busy…”

I don't believe that. What are we so busy doing? People say that everyone is in such a hurry today, they have kids that have to get dropped off to after-school activities or sports. But wait, they've always done that. Are kids now on six or eight teams instead of the one or two they...

Do The Work For The Art, Not For Fame Or Likes

Do the work. Make your art. Not for likes. Or thumbs up. Or fame. But because you have to do it, you have no choice in the matter, the work has to exist. It's the kind of work that if you put it out and didn't get a "Like", you'd still do it. That's how...

Why Do You Make a Photograph?

I have an either/or question: Why do you make a photograph? Is it to make a photograph that people will like? Hit the heart button on Instagram? The Like Thumbs Up on Facebook? Is that your delivery medium? Is it to make a photograph that needs to exist in the world? That hangs on a...

Gifted Art Film Portraits

[www.gofundme.com/f/buy-4x5-film-to-gift-art-portraits-of-people - You can help this project with a contribution to buy more film.] "I PHOTOGRAPH THEIR LIGHT, AND THERE'S NOTHING MORE SPECIAL!" As I hold up the old wooden camera by its thin leather handle, a camera that feels like a step out of time, a throwback to the early days of photography, their...

Four Photos, Just Four Photos

Four. (4). Just 1+1+1+1. I've been going out with the Graflex Speed Graphic and Ebony 4x5 with the purpose of making photographs. But not some unknown number of photographs, four photographs. Just four. Can you imagine going out and shooting only four photographs? Just four exposures? I only bring two film holders. Yesterday, (I'm only...

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...