There’s Something About Portraits on 4×5 with a Graflex SLR

I went to the local lake with an Auto Graflex, one of the early 4x5 SLRs that didn't have a revolving back (RB) but a fixed back for horizontal photos. When I take a camera like that out in public, people respond with interest and wonder. It's a camera I picked up at a local...

A Gift of a Portrait to Add to My Worldwide Home Gallery Collection

The greatest gifts are those that expect no return. I dropped these two photographs off to Norm, who I wrote about in a previous article. Well, those portraits don't matter unless I print and frame them and get them to him so his family can enjoy them for some time to come. And that's exactly...

Goin’ Out With One of the Big Boys (AKA 4×5 Graflex Crown Graphic)

I was headed out to the local promenade, uh...okay the walking path around the local lake, Mcintosh Lake, and had to choose what to bring. I decided it was time to 'go big or go home,' uh...actually I was home when I made the decision, so I really only had one choice. I went big....

Film Shooting: Prolifically Making Art

I am hosting The Photo Game to a group of photographers around the world and it requires each player to submit a film photograph a week, one made in that previous seven days using the weekly prompt, or they're out of the game. It's making me make a lot of film photos a week. I...

We Have Choices Today. I Choose the Analog. The Tangible.

Like vinyl records versus digital CDs. Tube versus solid-state guitar amplifiers. Home-cooked meals versus microwaved. Hand-written (or typed) greeting cards versus emails. Film versus digital photography. Traditional photographic prints versus NFTs. I'm in the tangible art business!~Kenneth Wajda I make film portraits using 20th-century techniques and cameras and print in a traditional darkroom. For those...

Photography is Wonderful

There is one thing I am sure about, that photography is special, magical, wonderful. It allows us to keep loved ones with us forever. It stops time. It's a time travel machine. It's something that for most of humankind, didn't exist. (It's only 182 years old, this photographic medium. Before 1839, no one had ever...

Honored to Have Made His Portrait for the Family

Sadly, Mr. Momano passed away this past Sunday. Graflex RB Super D, a 4x5 SLR I met him only once when I was out using my new-to-me (though made in the mid-1900s) Graflex RB Super D, a hand-holdable 4x5 SLR camera with a 190mm f5.6 Kodak Ektar lens. (This is the same camera that Dorothea...

Seeking Denver/Boulder and Front Range Authors for a Gallery Portrait Series

AUTHORS/WRITERSI'm working on a series of large-format black and white film portraits of authors for a fall 2021 gallery show. If you are one or know one, would you please message me. I'm looking for published authors, both young and established.You can see some of my 4x5 portrait work of people in other professions made...

Productive Photographically in These Pandemic Times

This pandemic has certainly caused a major disruption in the lives of photographers. I've heard many say that it has stifled all creativity, there's just nothing to shoot. Sure, there were the photo essays on the pandemic, and people social distancing, masking up, etc. But after that, what's left? What's wrong with me? I've had...

Why Do You Make a Photograph?

I have an either/or question: Why do you make a photograph? Is it to make a photograph that people will like? Hit the heart button on Instagram? The Like Thumbs Up on Facebook? Is that your delivery medium? Is it to make a photograph that needs to exist in the world? That hangs on a...