I Ain’t Denny’s!

Not everyone demands top quality from a photographer. But as a professional with 30-years of experience as an award-winning published photojournalist, that’s all I offer. It certainly costs more, but you get the best quality and service.

If you don’t want that, please don’t call me.

I don’t hand over image files because I care that they are finished professionally and look their absolute best–after all, it’s my work. Yet there are many people with cameras who will give you all the images after the shoot, saying, “Do what you want, print them at home, I don’t care. I just like to shoot and walk away.” If that’s what you want, I ain’t your guy.

If you would prefer cheap and quick over professional quality, please don’t contact me. If you don’t see the difference between professional photography and amateurs with a camera and some software presets, I can’t show you.

Just like if you can’t feel the difference between driving a Mercedes and a Kia, I can’t help you. And if you think Denny’s tastes as good as a chef-prepared meal, I’ve probably got nothing for you.

But if you can, expect to get something more delicious than you even imagined! Portfolio: KennethWajda.com – Studio phone: 720.982.9237

I Am a Film Photographer

PORTRAITS ON FILM – What’s the difference?

I am proud to be known as a Film Photographer. It’s my passion and what sets me apart from most photographers.

Why use film when digital is so much easier? Who said art has to be easy? And why is easy better?

IT’S ABOUT MAGIC

I shoot film because it’s a little bit dreamy, a little bit romantic, a little bit grainy, a little bit soft, a little bit magical—like a memory. It really is. It’s not completely literal, like digital.

Digital is perfectly sharp and clear, but like a CD is to a real vinyl record, it doesn’t have the same soulfulness, the warmth.

It’s the difference between a home-cooked meal and a microwave dinner. One is simply more satisfying.

Film is something you feel. When you see a portrait made on film, you may not even know why you like it, but you feel it. It’s that’s powerful. It’s emotional. It’s truth.

It’s not Photoshop tricks or Instagram filters. It’s simply truthful.

It’s the difference between portraits of movie stars in the 1960s and 1970s versus today. That difference is film!

When you want a little bit of that magic, and demand the very best for your family, schedule a genuine film portrait.

Seniors too, both the high school kind and your parents or grandparents!

As an award-winning staff photojournalist for 15 years with a major daily newspaper, I worked everyday to draw out personalities, to tell a story with a photograph. To capture emotion worthy of a feature page cover!

SPOILER AHEAD

The best images are not made with the most expensive camera, bursting with a thousand shots “spraying and praying”. It’s not about the camera at all, but the result of a genuine connection between subject and photographer—an ease, a comfort which shows in the image. (The magic isn’t in the camera, it’s in you, captured on real film!)

I shoot in studio, or at your location. Whichever best serves you.

Because, it’s all about you and your family. For a truly special photograph that will be shared and passed down for generations, choose film.

You’ll feel the difference when the photograph—a magical, artistic image of your family—is displayed in your home. Your guests will see the difference, as it won’t be like any others.

See my other film portraits at http://kennethwajda.com/kennethwajdafilmportraitist.htm

CALL TO SCHEDULE
Please call 720.982.9237 to schedule your film portrait session. Sessions start at $325 and include print packages. Traditional silver and canvas prints are available.

NOTE: I’m usually booked about three weeks out, but if you have a parent or child visiting and need to work on a specific timetable, I will work with you to make the photograph!

If you are outside of Colorado, still contact me as I travel across the U.S. for commercial clients and may be able to make some time work for you, too.

Time Traveling With a Leica or Rolleiflex

Ohmigod, is that a Saturn?  And look, remember when you had to pedal your bike!

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 first quarter of the century, since we didn’t bother to print any of our pictures, and they all got lost in dead computers and outdated phones and hard drives that last booted up decades ago.  And some old program, Facehead, or something, that was supposed to save them all.  Yeah right!

Plus, we don’t have any computers that use USB anymore!   How ancient that technology!

My Leica M2, still going strong in 2066.

As we sit looking out the window, our Leica M2s and M3s and Rolleiflexes still just as functional as they ever were, we load a roll of film and take a walk to go capture some street photos of the day.

The sky is full of PTDs–personal travel devices.  Everywhere, our brains connect with each other through telepathic waves.  Cars have long ago ceased to exist.

And we find ourselves thinking about the good old days.  Like 50 years ago, when things were simpler.  Sure there was that terrible fiasco with President Trump, but thankfully he was quickly arrested and tried for his crimes.  And then President Sanders’ brought all nations together.  War ended and America prospered, which is why we have such a great economy, plentiful jobs and USA-made robots and devices today.

But still, taking photos of present day just doesn’t seem as cool as the old days.  Back then, there were those cool Nissan Rogues, BMW sedans and those crazy Mini Coopers.  God, haven’t seen one of those in years!

What I wouldn’t do to be able to go back in time to 2016 and photograph them.  What a treat that would be.  But that’s crazy talk.

Look at that old BMW, when they still had wheels!  And drivers!

That’s just what we did in 2016, fifty years ago, when we were enamored by photos of old cars from the 1960s and 1970s.  So busy looking at the old cars, we missed the shots of those cool 2016 cars then.

All I know is I’m glad my Leicas lasted.  And my Rolleiflex.  Because when film made its resurgence in 2022, we were the only ones who knew how to make real photographs.  The rest make memory records, but we make photographs.

Which is why we’re the wealthiest photographers because of our forethought.  Way to go!

“Ah, look, the good old days.”  (Overheard circa 2016)

Time traveling.  That’s what people will be doing 50 years from today in 2116–looking back on life in 2066 (“Ah, the good old days,” they’ll say.).

That photo of the PTD fuel station that looks like nothing now, just a bunch of hovering vehicles powering up?  Add 50 years.  It needs time to become valuable.  Once time passes, familiar elements fade away.  Buildings change.  The cars, the shops, the cities.  Then the photos take on meaning.

I’m no math whiz, but here’s the equation: [P+T-GP!]   (Photograph + Time = Great Photograph!)  The photo needs to be good, too.  Let’s not forget that.

Ask Stephen Shore.  Or William Eggleston. They both knew the equation.

If I were back in 2016, I’d go out and shoot ordinary things, with an eye to the future.  Because maybe I’m not shooting them for me.  Maybe they’re historical photos for the Shorpy galleries of tomorrow.  (So glad that company is still going strong, with galleries around the world.)

But alas, I can’t time travel.  They say that technology will be ready in another twenty years but they’ve been saying that forever.

I better get shooting!

Photography as Family Documentary Work

We don’t shoot photographs.  We preserve history.

I am keenly aware of this as I visit my family and photograph brothers and sisters, parents and children over the holidays.  We really are the family documentary photographers.

As a photojournalist, capturing the story of a family in the everyday moments, whether shooting a formal dinner, playing in the yard or just watching football on TV, it’s all part of the story of who we are as a family right now.
In 2015.  And as it was in 1999.  And how it will be in 2027.

We are documenting much more than family snapshots, which is why I like to shoot more than just posed photos of people looking at the camera.  I like to capture each of my family members engaged in something they like to do.

As important as it is to shoot photographs for publications, there really is no more important work than when we are capturing our family.

We are historians with cameras.  Our work will live on for generations to come.

In fact, some of the viewers of our work haven’t even been born yet.  We are creating future galleries.  And the people we are photographing, that holiday photo we’re taking this year, will be the only way they know their ancestor.   They’re grandpa or uncle.

We are doing amazing work.  Let’s make sure we print our photos, too, so that they will last 100+ years despite technology’s evolution

It is seriously important work!

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 about how we see the world, only then is the art realized, and we give the viewer a glimpse into our soul.

I can tell you, as a filmmaker, how many Tarantino wannabees I see out there.  We don’t need another one of him–we have him.  (And one of him is too much for me–I think he’s ultra-violent and sits on that one note too long.)

But as photographers, what we need is to show a side of ourselves that reveals our truth.  Then, we have created art.  Dare to show something that reveals you.

It’s easy to say what you don’t like.

I hate this, I hate that.  You didn’t tell us anything about you.

I like that. 

You like that–what are you a freak, liking that?  Saying what you like tells us a bit about you.

So does what you photograph.

So, photograph your passion.  Stand by what are your favorite images, because they define you, and after we are all long gone, they will be what survive to tell the story of who we were.

Mine is the story of connections in families.  That’s my passion–to document the small stories that make up great lives.

See http://ElderlyPhotoVisits.com and http://TheWisePhotoProject.com for more.

Secret to Success: Product, Not Project

I am a working commercial photographer, who shoots in both film and digital.  Often, digital is required because the client needs the images in a very short turnaround.  And they need a great quantity of images.  Digital is good for that.

But I’ve come to the conclusion that PROJECTS are not going to get you anywhere but closer to paying this month’s bills.  To make a name for yourself, to get successful, you need PRODUCT.

The difference, I see, is like this.  A book is a product.  It can sell for years to come.  A gallery show is a product–it’s an event featuring you and your work.  A film, a record, a book, a short story, these are all products, and you can create a career with them.

But photographing a freelance job that gets images for one purpose, even if you can shoot ten of them a week, is still a project.  The project ends, and there is no lasting value, except perhaps to photograph it another time.  Many clients in this business end up being one and outs.  Those shoots pay the bills, and that’s all they do.

Products aren’t about creating for someone else’s needs.  Products are the result of creating for your own needs.  Putting your name on the cover and calling it your love.  And risking they may not buy it, like it.  They may even call it worthless and ridicule you.  But if it’s your vision, that’s what is valuable.  Your willingness to say something.  That’s the basis of product.

So, my focus is on my products, not projects.  It’s how I can go farther in my career and create lasting value in my work.  It’s how I can create legacy–my products are all that will be remembered.  Names are forgotten.  People disappear.  But we know the work.

That work is the product.  And that is what we must work for.

I AM LYONS COLORADO is a book I published in 2013.  It’s a product.  It exists in people’s homes and in the local library.

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 my hand.

She was working across the outdoor mall at a store, and saw my Rolleiflex, and came over, explaining that she’s a Rolleiflex shooter as well.

I am a proponent of legacy portraits on film, and this right here, is why.  Printed in a real darkroom on photographic paper, 12×12 framed, this is a stunning portrait for any room of the house.