Some Things You Just Do

Some things you do for money To make a living, to eat, to keep the lights on. Some things you do for the art of it. Not everything has to be monetized. That’s why I make portraits of folks 70+ on Mondays In my Longmont photo studio at no cost. Because I can. Because it’s...

Photography, Time Travel and Forgotten Memories Remembered & Relived

Photography used to be time travel. We took photographs, and then forgot them. That magic roll of film held the memory safe, tucked away in the dark to be revealed and relived at another time. A trip to the Fotomat was highly anticipated--the roll finished and developed, it offered wonderful surprises, time travel, remembering and...

To the New Year, 2020!

And to all my photographer friends: Here's to Good Light!

What do you want for 2020?

Keith Richards wanted to be in the best blues band in London. He ended up being in the best band in the world! I want to be the best photographer in Denver with gallery and museum exhibitions of my work, to be an influential teacher and inspiring speaker on photography, and similarly known around the...

Why the Instant Reflex to Capture Everything?

Everywhere I go, no matter what the event, the scene, the purpose, as soon as anything happens, it can be a marching band or a person opening a gift, everyone pulls out a phone and starts recording. Everyone. Why the instant reflex, the need to capture everything? Everything. Is it a natural reflex to get...

The Hard Work of Publishing Four Photo Books: Follow-up

A short while ago, I published this post: Publishing Four Very Important Photo Books in 2019 Since then, I've completed three of the books (one person couldn't get it together) and they're on their way. In the process, here's what I learned. 1. People don't know where their photos are. 2. They don't know how to...

The Selfie Generation

I was looking at a young friend's Facebook page trying to find a photo I had made at  their party, and while I was scrolling through, not finding it, I found dozens of photos like these.  Posed and selfie group shots. I looked further and found more posed and selfie group shots.  Decently composed, but...

The Homogenization of Wedding Photos

To me, all wedding photos look alike right now. It feels like advertising for the art director. Whenever I see wedding photos in magazines or people's posts, it seems like a lot of the same photographs of the decor and flowers and table settings like still life/product shots, like the bride and groom are more...

The Problem with Evaluating Success by Numbers: It Misses The Wins!

I have a few different blogs that I post to, one regularly, RoyStryker.com, and one more occasionally, this one, 6x6portraits.com. I also have a YouTube Channel, easy to remember its web address because I use HeresToGoodLight.com as an easy link to remember--I put out a video weekly. And there's a podcast I started up, daily....

Publishing Four Very Important Photo Books in 2019

It started with a social media post. And it was an idea that would change the world. See, these four books for four friends are the most significant photo books I'll publish this year. And they're not even my photos. Because those folks weren't going to make photo books. They weren't going to print any...