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...

Nikon vs. Leica

I am both a Nikon and Leica shooter.  I shoot film and digital with both brands and the other day I sat down at my Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter--that's where I do my best thinking on paper--and I wrote out what each camera type is good for. For shooting street photography, Leica may be classic,...

Name a Time, Name a Price, Get a Photograph

I have a dilemma. I love to create photographs, lasting memories, beautiful portraits of people of all ages. But people don’t commission portraits anymore.  An occasional high school senior portrait, because those are due.  But the rest of the time, the rest of the family, nah! We’re living in a time when our phone camera...

For Photographs, Like Life, There Are No Presets

I can't make photographs like everyone else.  I really can't! I'm not taking the typical photograph everyone else is taking: soft background, pastel feel shallow depth, high-key background. You know the look. It's the same look every wedding and portrait photographer is doing. And it's why every photo looks the same. Have you seen wedding...

DON’T ‘LIKE’ THESE PHOTOS!

I don't create photographs for likes. I make photographs that will still exist in 50 years, long after the swipe is through, through gallery and book projects. That's why I shoot on film, and make gallery-quality prints. These aren't for likes. I’m looking for two kinds of photographs to make, one for my Roy Stryker...

6×6 Portraits – Scenes with a Rolleiflex

Time Traveling With a Leica or Rolleiflex

The year is 2066. We're teleporting to different parts of the earth, holding meetings on virtual beaches while sitting at home, and having robots do all the chores. And we're using the latest camera technology, which means no camera at all--just look at something and it's captured. We're lamenting not having any photos from the...

Secret to Success: Product, Not Project

I am a working commercial photographer, who shoots in both film and digital.  Often, digital is required because the client needs the images in a very short turnaround.  And they need a great quantity of images.  Digital is good for that. But I've come to the conclusion that PROJECTS are not going to get you...

Creating Stunning Portraits That Capture a Person’s Light

Made with a Rolleiflex T twin-lens reflex camera on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado, it's a moment captured on film that has a feeling all its own.  And very few of the digital photos being taken today will last 50 years, like this will.  Because this negative is physical--I can hold it in...