Tuesday Night Photographers Gather

For the past two years, I and a group of local photographers have been gathering at a Colorado Irish pub on Tuesday nights. If you stop into Mike O'Shays in Longmont, Colorado on any Tuesday evening, you'll find a gang of photo enthusiasts from amateur snapshooters to seasoned pros sitting around, drinking Guinness pints or...

A Trio of Photographs of a Longtime Friend

Some friendships last over multiple decades and across long miles. My former photo editor, Martin, who hired me on as a staff photographer at The Times of Trenton (NJ), is one of those friendships. I've seen him when I'm back on the east coast and he's visited with me when he's out in Colorado skiing....

“Do You Use Both Film and Digital?

I had that question asked of me yesterday and I get that question a lot. I was at an Oscar party with friends and someone I hadn't met before heard I was a photographer (it probably was an easy guess with a Leica R8 hanging over my shoulder), and asked that question. I said yes,...

A Horizontal Rolleiflexer

I'm a Rolleiflex user and a firm believer in this camera is one of the best for portrait and documentary work. Better than a Leica since the film negative is larger. And more affordable than a Leica, too. I recently picked up this Rolleiflex T for a song because it has a chip in the...

An Invited Guest: Having a ‘Street Photographer’ at the Wedding

When you've been a photojournalist and documentary photographer for as long as I have, including having photographed U.S. Presidential campaigns, and are a photographer who also makes portraits using black and white film (and hand prints them in a traditional halide silver darkroom), it's challenging to explain to people what it is I do at...

Light Recordist: The Light On Stuff

That's what we photograph, not stuff but the light on stuff. Photography is the recording of light which burns onto the silver halides of film or makes an image with a digital sensor. It's all light. "Light Recordist" would be another accurate name for a photographer. When you see the light and realize that there...

2024: When The Lines Began to Blur

AI is becoming so pervasive that when a photographer went out to photograph a series of people washing feet for a Superbowl ad, people thought they were so good, they had to be fake. They are well-produced and the photographs were actually made around Los Angeles and the sets look like something created by Gregory...

What Should You (and I) Photograph

That's easy. Photograph whatever is most important to you. Photograph who and what you love. Photograph your world. People, places and things. Here are some of mine including family and friends, from various times together plus places and things for as long as the Ilford HP5 black and white film was inside a Leica M3...

What’s New (Though Nothing’s New) is New to You

Whenever someone asks what's the point of photographing this or that, everything's been photographed before, I always answer the same way: "Not by me." No one sees the way I do (or you do). Like love notes--there are no two alike--what I create is uniquely mine. That's why I do it. To express my way...

Photographing to Reveal Character: Subject + Lens + Film Stock

People say lenses have character. And various film stocks have character. I find that to be true, though I don't necessarily worry about the qualities of a Leica versus Pentax or Nikon lens all that much. I'm just as happy to photograph with a Leica Summilux 50mm f1.4 as I am with a Nikkor 50mm...