I Don’t Need Anything, But This Leica and This Notebook

Being both a photographer (documentary/street) and a writer (stand-up comedy/screenplays), I came to the realization that there is a correlation between the two. Because both require something of me. See, I carry a Leica and notebook everywhere I go. When my parents took photographs when I was growing up, they took them out at Christmas,...

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 Camera is the Greatest Way for Meeting People

I've met more people in my life as a result of my camera than any other way.  Of course, I talk to strangers all the time.  In fact, I don't think of them as strangers, but just people sharing life with me, and we are all a part of this something, whatever is is, together, ...

Camera Stores Used to be a Gathering Place for Photographers

I was talking with another photographer recently and he brought up that he misses hanging out at camera shops. I knew exactly what he meant. In the days of film, that was the place to meet, to see gear, talk and hang out with other photographers. There was still a little bit at risk when...

Nobody Cares What Camera You Use–the Camera Doesn’t Matter

Unless they can see the difference. Many people cannot see the difference. So, many people don't care what camera you use. The camera doesn't define you, or make your work.  You do! You define your work.  Here's proof.  This photographer shot 100 different cameras, and yet the work all looks similar.  Because it's not the...

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...

Photograph Your Love, Share Your Passion

As a photographer, there's nothing else that matters, no one else who gets to decide what is important, other than that which is important to you.  Photography is a creative expression, and when we stop looking to create images that will please others, and actually create images that please ourselves, that reveal a little something...

I Print Your Family Photo Albums – Because You WILL Lose your Digital Photos!

When will it happen to your photos?  (Because it eventually will!) Today someone asked me if I knew how to restore photos from their phone that they accidentally erased. No one erases the photos on the wall! Print your photos! It's just a matter of time when your photos will be unable to be found...

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...

With Her Parents: Savoring Scenes from the Movie of a Life

It's a feeling.  I suppose, you either feel it or you don't.  I certainly do.  There's a magic in that silver, I tell you.  Now there's a Tri-X negative in a sleeve that exists with that image.  And there is a print of each photograph in a frame, to savor those moments. Because photography wasn't...