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...

The Wise Photo Project Goes Worldwide to Photograph Sweet Wonderful Old Faces

It really started kind of small in Kenneth Wajda’s Boulder Colorado commercial portrait studio back in 2015. He advertised an open studio on Mondays in the local events listings for seniors age 70 and over to come in and get a formal portrait made at no cost, figuring that was his slowest day at the...

Social Media and the New Photography

Social media has a bad rap. It's full of great family photos but it has a whole lot of misinformation and even dangerous content. I think that's why people are afraid if you take their photograph with a real camera, like if you're a street photographer, because they don't know where their photo might end...

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...

The Tech Beat Generation

I coined the “Tech Beat Generation” after searching for a name for the kind of person I am—interested in using tech to create work like photographs, stories and recordings, both audio and video, but tired of being constantly in front of a screen and having a device in my pocket that won’t stop vying for...

Photographing Children at Play in Safe America

I wish we didn't live in a world where there was so much suspicion about each other, where everyone is assumed to be 'stranger danger' until proven innocent. Where every man is looked upon as a creep, and everyone on the street has bad intentions. A man with a camera can only mean bad news....

Photographer Duane Michals Tells It Like He Sees It

Here's a terrific interview with a most original photographer, Duane Michals. He's funny when he calls Garry Winogrand a hack. (Winogrand famously walked out of Duane's first gallery show saying, "Come on, let's go, this isn't photography.") At 88, Michals doesn't hold anything back. He really know what he wants as a photographer and artist...

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....

A Crossroads in the History of Photography

We are at a crossroads, now more than ever.  At first it was just digital technology as a new way to capture light and make a picture. We all embraced it because it was no cost, no worry, shoot shoot shoot and delete later, or don't. (Because let's face it, we don't delete, we just...