Everyone I Meet at Yard Sales Misses Photography

There’s a growing interest in film photography among young people (to whom it’s brand new!) I love teaching about photography and getting these old film cameras that documented so many of our lives, keeping them alive and working for a new generation of photographers, making prints, creating art. I work one-on-one with students in Boulder...

Getting a Better Camera Won’t Change a Thing (Maybe Get a Worse Camera!)

I have friends who keep upgrading to newer cameras, better cameras, bigger sensors, faster more expensive lenses, and their new photos look exactly the same as their older photos. All cameras are quite capable nowadays. It's the 12" behind the camera that matters most when it comes to great cameras and their ability to make...

You Don’t Have to Smile

I often tell that to my portrait subjects--no need to smile. I'd prefer they were being themselves rather than putting on the smile mask that we all learned to wear as a kid via "Say Cheese". There's nothing wrong with a genuine smile, but asking for it, or having them turn it on, I find...

My Eternal Quest to Motivate Showing Up

I talk about this a lot. The idea that we can capture magic with our cameras, but we have to show up. Have to go out and find the photographs by getting out of our easy chair and out into the world, camera at the ready. I was lying awake a couple nights ago thinking...

Golden Age of Analog Photography

We are really living in it, a new golden age of analog photography. Sometimes we can't see something while we're in it. You can either be in the mountains, or off the mountains looking at them--they're impossible to see while you're in them. But there couldn't be a better time to be an analog photographer....

BTS (Behind The Scenes) Photos

Do you enjoy seeing the behind the scenes pictures from a photo shoot? I was out on a photowalk with my friend Paul, I was using my Rolleiflex and he was shooting his Nikon F 35mm camera. I had black and white Ilford HP5 loaded, and he was shooting Kodak color film. My goal was...

The Rolleiflexers Collective

I am working on building Rolleiflexers, a Photography Collective of documentary street life Rolleiflex photographers and would be interested in hearing if this is something you make--street documentary photographs with a Rolleiflex--and would be interested in joining. Becoming a collective photographer is by invitation only and the work is curated. I am considering about ten...

Part II – Rolleiflex Street Portraits in RiNo Area of Denver

The RiNo section of Denver is a hip new area full of brewpubs and eateries and lots of hipster types. That's not why I took my Rolleiflex there, but because the Denver Month of Photography is going on and I wanted to visit some of the galleries with current photography exhibits. After I parked the...

The Film/Digital Difference

The difference between the two is night and day to me, and I am assuming you also can see it. There's a time for each, just like there's a time for watercolor and oil paint. Just like there is a time for takeout food (takeaway for those readers across the pond) and a time to...

Time Traveling With a Leica or Rolleiflex

Ohmigod, is that a Saturn?  And look, remember when you had to pedal your bike! [This is a repost of the most popular 6x6Portraits blog post ever. We're time traveling today back to 2016.] The year is 2066. We're teleporting to different parts of the earth, holding meetings on virtual beaches while sitting at home,...