The Magic is In Front of the Lens and Behind the Camera–Shooting Street Portraits with an Older Camera

I work as a professional photographer in Boulder, Colorado, shooting portraits, business headshots, and commercial projects for clients like the U.S. Air National Guard and U.S. Air Force, food and drink for Whitewave/Silk and American Homestead Meats, and event coverage for companies in the cable industry.

On a recent day off, I decided to take a stroll down to the Pearl Street Mall, the local outdoor shopping area in downtown Boulder, and figured I’d build my portraiture client list by photographing people on the mall, getting their email, and offering to send them a photograph. In the email, I asked them if I could add them to my email list where I offer tips to great phone photography (something they’re probably interested in) while promoting my services.

The truth is, while my business clients are regular users of photographs, many people sometimes think to do family portraits or couple portraits, but that’s where it ends, with a thought. They never actually order a portrait session.

OUT ON THE MALL FOR STREET PORTRAITS

On this day off from client work, I took out a Nikon DSLR that is 9 years old, a D90 which debuted in August 2008. Why I brought that instead of my D810 is that I wanted to shoot with a vintage 1970s-era lens, the Nikon 55mm f1.2 non-AI manual focus lens for the soft backgrounds it produces, since I would be working on a crowded outdoor mall, and the information at Nikonians.org about its lens compatibility with my digital bodies says:

NO!	Definitely do not use, for it may damage the camera body. Also, warranty will be void.

That didn’t sound promising. But I was determined. So, I mounted the lens on my backup body, a D7200, and it mounted but it was tight to attach and once attached, the aperture ring wouldn’t budge.  Hmmm.

That mount seemed ridiculously tight. It took a good strong twist to mount it. Definitely not a normal mount. I thought, I’ll do a test with it, and then another one with the old D90 that I had laying around, knowing that at f1.2, I wouldn’t be needing the latest sensor capability for low light performance–I’d be shooting at base ISO (200, in this case) since I was working outside wide open.

The test with the D90 looked as good as the D7200, though it was a 12mp image instead of a 24mp. Good enough for what I was working on. And if it damaged the body, oh well, not much lost since that’s not my go-to camera . (It looks like you can get a D90 these days for under $200.)

So, with that 55mm f1.2 Nikkor S-C extremely securely mounted, I hit the streets.

And then I approached people, folks who looked like they were in a good location to interrupt them. Sitting somewhere, or chatting in the shade. Here’s what I found and created, with the promise to send them each their portrait.
This couple got two images, I liked them as a package. She replied: Thank you so much for the lovely portraits. What a great treat to meet you and let you make these portraits of Pieter and me. Yes, we have been in love since we met in the summer of 1965 in the Netherlands, where we grew up. I will certainly think of you when we need a beautiful family portrait when we are all together in Boulder for a happy family get together. I will also recommend you to our friends. Until we meet again. With warm wishes, Susanna.
If I hadn’t made them, would they ever get made? It seems a shame that they might not, and I’m proud to have made them.
This guy was working on the mall.
These three were sitting in front of an ice cream shop, and looked like a photogenic trio.

Visiting Boulder from Italy and very flattered to be photographed.

She tagged me in this Instagram post.

The ice cream on their faces were what drew me to them.
Someone was trying to get a photo of them with a phone, when I offered to shoot it for them.

A couple out on the mall with their dog, who was too old to make it into the photo.

A dapper man who engaged me in talk of photography.

A couple of friends out for happy hour drinks.

A grandpa and his grandson sharing a bit of time watching street performers.

She wouldn’t hold still long enough to get the three of them in the same plane of focus, so this is the result.They were heartily laughing, which is how I approached them: “I love your laugh.  Can I photograph you?”

Another guy interested in talking about photography.
She’s into photography and was talking about my camera, and her interest.

A daughter and her father sharing a coffee break.

Two friends cruising the mall, who I asked to photograph them together.

The only one that I kept in color instead of black and white was a young woman at a local taco joint, while I was waiting for my burrito, who asked about my camera and mentioned that she likes photography. I asked her if I could take her portrait with the light coming through the broad windows of the shop.

These were all made with a 9-year-old camera body, (a senior citizen of the camera world!), that no one into camera models would take seriously. I took care of that with a small piece of black gaffer tape over the model number. Problem solved!

The people who I photographed loved their portraits. I asked them to please tag me in any social media posts. And of course I included my contact card at the bottom or each of my emails. And now, I have their contact information for my growing list of contacts. These are new contacts to people who have now seen my work, who like my work, who may need anything from family photographs to business images–someone might be the CEO of a company.

Portraiture is all about the connection to the subject in the image that we create, the emotion we draw out–not just the technical quality of the camera. I wrote this story because I think sometimes we feel we need the latest and greatest, and we really don’t.

It’s really not about the camera. We need something proficient for what we want to create. The D90 is from 2008 and the 55mm f1.2 is from 1972. Good gear matters, but it doesn’t have to be the latest in all cases.

It’s about creating art out of beautiful, wonderful subjects.  And these people certainly are.

Kenneth Wajda is a freelance commercial photographer and film producer in Boulder, Colorado. You can see more of his work at KennethWajda.com.

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Photographs Lost: Buried in the Sand by the Digital Undertow

More people are experiencing the glut of photography. It’s everywhere, it’s instant, it’s disposable, and that’s exactly where it goes–away.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
I remember when I was a kid, we had professional portraits made every year, and our family would make family portraits that would line the wall alongside the staircase.

And all my friends, too, there were portraits of each of them and their family members up on the walls. What happened that we don’t value family portraits like that anymore?

SAD TALES OF LOSS
I’ve personally heard several examples in the last few months of people telling me they wished they had photographs that were better than the phone snaps they have of their kid when they were two. Or five or seven. Or in one case, of their grandma when she was 95.

At a recent conference, a manager for a major corporation told me that he didn’t know why they stopped doing family photos, they just haven’t for years.

A couple I was chatting with at a pub told me that in hindsight, they should have printed some of the better photos that they can’t find anymore.

And one person I met while documenting life out on the street said they wished they hadn’t thrown away all their parents slides after they digitized them, because now the disc won’t load and they’re taking it to a computer tech to try to retrieve the images.

The wonderful thing about the phone is you can shoot a million photos.

The terrible thing about the phone is you can shoot a million photos.

A PHOTOGRAPHIC DARK AGE
And those photos are disappearing. Far away.   Into some distant folder buried on some hard drive that people think they are saving them, but have no idea where they go.   Unedited photos that no one wants to go through. There are just too many!

Find me a photo of your grandparent or kid from just five years ago. Good luck.

I find this to be a sad time for photography, because many families are overindulging in low-quality snapshots, and only that. They are being led into a false sense that they’ve got their memories saved, and well-preserved, and that they have quality images.

They really don’t, and they’re not.

I PREFER MY FAMILY DARK AND BLURRY
I see lots of photos that get ‘likes’ on social media. Often they’re poor, blurry, dark, not a keeper in any sense of the word. But there are the likes. Lots of them.  And always the comment, “Great picture of you.” Really, you like to see them dark and out of focus?

It’s like the difference between cheap junk furniture from Wal-Mart versus fine furniture from an artisan woodworker–the photographs we’re choosing are cheap and not very good.   Functional, but low quality.

Many people who saved their photos to CDs or tapes over the last 20 years have had some amount of loss–either some discs won’t load anymore or the tapes don’t play, or they play with degradation through the images.  It’s threatening to become a real digital dark age.

PUTTING IT OFF
I know people who talk about wanting to get portraits made of their kids at every year, then figure they can wait a little bit, then the kid turns four, seven, ten, and then they realize they haven’t made any good portraits of them. I’m seeing this in my business, as people put off scheduling the sessions they used to book. Or if they do, they don’t even want prints, just the digital files.

I’ve actually had clients who’ve scheduled a portrait session, with prints included in the session fee, and they’ve never ordered them. They don’t see the point of a real photograph. I’ve sent them reminders that a print order comes with their photo session. But there’s no response. Nothing. Zero interest.

They see no value in the actual real, physical photographs.

And in five or ten or twenty years–some time in the very near future–those photos, even though they were made by me, a professional, will cease to exist as they get lost in the tidal wave of images. And buried in the sand by the digital undertow with all the rest.

I don’t see how they are ever going to make up for them. In fact, I know the answer. They’re not.

GIMME ALL THE FILES, JUST THE FILES
There are plenty of people who’ve picked up a digital SLR in the past few years and call themselves a photographer, who will shoot your family by a tree for very little money, and give you all the files.  They have no interest in photography as an art medium with a final product–an actual photograph–but only to shoot their camera and get paid for pushing the button.  You could print their photo dark with lines across the faces with an inkjet printer and they couldn’t care less.

The more I discuss this situation, the more I get people nodding in agreement. They concur too many photos is a problem. They say they know the quality is lower than they’d like.  And they admit to having lost a phone and thousands of pictures or knowing someone who has. But do they do anything and book a session?

No, they don’t. Because that I-have-a-phone-I-can-do-it-myself mentality persists.

AMERICA THE (LOOK) RICH
America looks rich, but isn’t. It just looks it. We think we have the best, but we buy the worst as long as it looks okay. That patio set in our backyard from Target, that’ll last a year or two then we’ll throw it away. Everything is disposable. Nothing is built to last. But it’s nice and cheap, and looks good for a little while.

There was a recent article in the Boston Globe where someone asked regarding school photographs, “Why does Picture Day still exist?”   That’s the mentality–that we have our phones and our snaps and they’re good enough.

Maybe I’m nostalgic, but I thought there was something to my folks ordering and framing photographs of us as we were growing up. I liked the way we each had something to remind us we were all vital parts of this family.

WHAT, ME DRESS UP?  ARE YOU KIDDING?
Now, to get people together for a family photograph, to suggest they come in for a formal studio portrait, I’ve had people tell me they can’t be bothered to dress up. They have some from the park they made themselves, and don’t really care about getting them done formally anymore.

I’m a film photographer who shoots legacy photographs on real film and I print photographs on real paper for framing and displaying in a home or other physical space.

I don’t understand the unwillingness to spend to photograph our families well.   Future generations are counting on it, and they will be surely disappointed by the lost pictures and bad snapshots.

Someone must still value the best in quality.  Someone who isn’t put off by the idea of dressing up.

YOUR FAMILY ARE ROCK STARS
If you’re a rock star or movie actor, and you’re being photographed by a professional photographer for a magazine spread, you don’t complain that you can’t wear your sneakers and t-shirt. You want to look your best.  You go to be your best. You dress up and feel your best. You’re a rock star, after all. Everyone knows the performer’s creed: “Look better than the rest of them!”

That’s my goal, to find those that see their families as worth the extra expense for a high-end studio, formal portrait that they will hang in their home, because they see their family as worth it. And that see me as the one photographer, an truly experienced professional, working in a special, unique way–not just another guy with a digital spray and pray camera, but with real film and quality lighting in an actual studio–that will actually preserve that memory and will truly capture them as they are.

With artistry.  And quality as the determining factor, not the cheapest price point as the basis for their decision.

The rest will have to hope to salvage that phone snap for a very long time.

 

Why I Photograph The Wise

I have a project titled, The Wise Photo Project, where I photograph elderly people on film, because they often have very few photographs taken of them.  Here are my parents, my Dad giving my Mom a kiss as she lies in a hospital bed in the living room of his house.  This is why I photograph the wise!  They won’t be here forever, and they are beautiful in their old age.

I can photograph your elderly relatives too, I work throughout the U.S., and create legacy prints for your family, photographs your grandkids will cherish as they get to know their grandparents from way back in 2016.

 

TheWisePhotoProject.com – 720.982.9237

The State of Photography and Journalism Circa 2016 A.D.

Photography and journalism share a similarity.  Both used to be respected and valued for their quality and integrity, and just this week, the New York Times said that on Facebook, they are treated as being equal to fake news sites, because they are both given the same credibility by the public.

That is the same with photographers and the public when they hire photographers.

Photographers used to be very well respected. You’d hire a photographer for his/her knowledge on how to capture your family’s personality, your company’s specialty, or document a special event with the ability to tell that event’s story. It was not about gear, and so much more than pointing a camera. Or getting focus nailed. Photographers didn’t spray (shoot like crazy) and pray (hope they get something).  They worked with proficiency and efficiency.

Professional photographers are never about gear. Great photographers know their cameras and then get them out of the way to create meaningful images of the subjects they are hired to photograph.

Nowadays, there’s a perception that everyone’s a photographer. I disagree. Everyone has a camera. That doesn’t qualify everyone as a photographer. Everyone has a stove–that doesn’t make everyone a chef.

As a professional, often my competition is the person who got a camera for their last birthday, plays with their cameras on weekends, and the work that they do, no matter how mediocre it is, has become the accepted norm.

And it’s the desired product, since it’s cheap.

All their photos look alike–shot wide-open, toned via a computer preset with the popular look of the day. That’s the look that they’re all buying from the post-processing software gurus selling them all the same effect. That’s why they all look alike.  Have you seen wedding photographs lately?  Talk about cookie cutter.

Professional photographers know and see the difference. We know why it’s important to professionally print photos. We know that a professional photographer is much more than just a person with a camera.

We know lighting. We know how to pose to bring out your best features, to make you feel your best, so that we can best capture that personality on film.  We even know where and when to shoot, how to coordinate colors in clothing with backgrounds.  Photography is as much a psychological game as it is an mechanical one using a camera.

True professional have never competed with the Sears and JCPenney portrait studios, who sold cheap, but were never in the photography business but rather the sales business.  I worked for them.  They gave me sales quotas I was expected to meet for print packages.  I quit within a week, and went to work for a daily newspaper.

Professionals were hired for their vision, their unique ability to use a camera to create in ways that go far beyond Photography 101.

But Photography 101 photographers are cheap. More and more of them hanging their shingle out every day, because they got a camera, and they are competing for the work that the seasoned pro used to get, and families and businesses are choosing the mediocre (and cheap) work.

That’s photography today! High quality and mediocre are both available, and people buy poor quality photos all day long.  It’s made mediocrity the norm.  I know people who say they work professionally with a phone camera.  It’s incredible.

If you are looking for quality photography locally, you have two choices:

1. You can hire a pro, like myself, a commercial studio photographer, an award-winning, 30-year-professional photographer and experienced photojournalist who has photographed everyone from U.S. presidents and authors to rock stars and movie stars. Who has photographed for the U.S. Air National Guard, Whole Foods, WhiteWave/Silk, National Beer Wholesaler Association, American Cable Association, among others, and covered events from groundbreakings and grand openings to presidential campaigns and funerals of state officials and had his work published around the world in magazines and newspapers via the Associated Press. One who will photograph you with efficiency and give you the right number of quality photos for your needs.
2. Or you can get a person with an automatic camera and the latest presets and will give you 1000 image files to do with as you will.

There is a difference.

Who will you use for the most important subject, your family’s photographs? I am not just photographing for you, but for your children’s children. I’m creating historical documents, visual memories for future generations, legacy photographs professionally printed at a custom pro lab that will last for generations.

I don’t hand over the image files because I care that they are finished professionally and look their best.  After all, it’s my work.  Yet there are many people with cameras who will give you all the images after the shoot, saying, “Do what you want, print them at home, I don’t care.  I just like to shoot and walk away.”

Who will you hire for your business portraits and product shots?  Your customers see the difference when they see quality, even if they’re not sure why it’s better.  Quality is perceived through professional work, that’s why top companies use advertising agencies and art directors, because it ultimately affects the company’s bottom line

If you don’t see the difference between professional photography and amateurs with a camera, I can’t show you.  If you can’t feel the difference between driving a Mercedes and a Suzuki, I can’t help you.  If you think Denny’s tastes as good as a chef-prepared meal, I’ve got nothing for you.

But don’t believe you’re getting the best if you don’t hire a professional.  And likewise, don’t believe what you read on Facebook, because it really might not be real news at all, and those New York Times reporters are a lot more trustworthy, if only they could get readers to turn to them and stand out from the glut of mediocre ‘news’ sites.

The quality of photography and journalism has certainly been lowered by substandard photographers and fake journalists.  That’s the state of photography and journalism, circa 2016 A.D.

Golden Nugget Flea Market – Searching for Bargains (and Photographs, and Conversation!)

Not only do I enjoy walking this antique flea market when I visit my folks in PA, but I love photographing some of the people and getting into conversations about photography because of my Leica IIIf that I’m shooting with.

I carry that camera everywhere I go, because it’s small enough to fit in my front jeans pocket with the lens collapsed into the body.  (I take the case off.)

And these are the wonderful photos it makes.  The camera is from the 1950s.  The lens from the 1930s! (Click the photograph to enlarge it.)

Portrait at 100

Portrait of a neighbor, at 100 years old.  Leica M2, Summarit f1.5 Lens, Kodak Tri-X Film.  The Wise Photo Project

The Joy of Family (Pictures)

This is why I shoot Elderly Photo Visits.  It gives me the chance to preserve memories that will last long after our parents and grandparents are gone.  And will be cherished by generations to come.

I printed this photo and gave it to several family members in frames I picked up at Goodwill (50% off sale today, yay), because without printing our photos, they really don’t exist.  So, print your photos.  Frame them and live with the memories in your home.