I Don’t Plan to Make Photographs

You really never know when your friend is going to resemble an umbrella pole/post, and the camera has to be with you, on and ready to shoot. This is why I take a camera with me everywhere. I don't intend to shoot anything when I take my camera. I just notice life's little moments and...

Photographic Life Goals, Making Wise Portraits and Losing Margaret

I have big dreams for my life, my creativity and my photography. I really do live for photography and believe it can make a difference in the world and in the lives of families--like when I photograph seniors for The Wise Photo Project, it does change their world. Those photographs aren't just another family portrait...

Everyone I Meet at Yard Sales Misses Photography

There’s a growing interest in film photography among young people (to whom it’s brand new!) I love teaching about photography and getting these old film cameras that documented so many of our lives, keeping them alive and working for a new generation of photographers, making prints, creating art. I work one-on-one with students in Boulder...

Project: Kids & Teens, Unsupervised

I'm working on a street documentary set of photographs about kids and teens and the way they behave primarily when they're unsupervised by adults. I am interested in documenting youngsters and their body language as they grow up. I am always working on a project (or six). This one, honestly, I wasn't starting, it found...

Photographers Rate Card (PhotographersRateCard.com)

How is a new photographer supposed to know what to charge for professional photography services? You don't see lawyers, and architects and contractors working for low rates, to get started, to get their foot in the door of their profession. Somehow, because anyone with a camera and little else in the way of credentials can...

Radiating Youth with a 70-Year-Old Rolleiflex

I've always enjoyed photographing people's stories, making street photos and portraits of people I meet of all ages. I have a project dedicated to creating legacy portraits of older faces, The Wise Photo Project, but that doesn't mean that is the only age I photograph. I recently was out with the Rolleiflex and a few...

Liking a “Twelver” Over a 36-Exposure Roll

I like rolls of 12. For photography, a dozen frames is a manageable number these days when I'm shooting film. Because I tend to have film loaded in multiple cameras. (As William Eggleston says, "I take the camera I feel like using on any given day.") Just today I processed a roll of 36-exposure Tri-X...

2005: The Year Photography Changed

It's interesting to me to see how things change. When I was in school we had text books and notebooks. Students today have Macbooks and iPads. We learned penmanship and how to write and diagram sentences. Do they even learn that now? When was the last time anyone had to write a letter by hand...

I Love Street Photography, I Hate Street Photography Now

I do. I love street photography. I make street photographs and portraits all the time. But I hate street photography now, or at least what it's become. It feels like it's stuck at the moment. Seriously, street photography today, what I see online, wears me out. It's tiring. If I see one more figure in...

Portrait Magnet: A Dandy Rolleiflex T Dressed to the Nines in its Gray Leather Suit

I carried with me a Rolleiflex, held high in my hand with my elbow bent to keep it at chest level. No strap. No case. Just the Rolleiflex. It's a model T, a later model that is a bit of a dandy of a camera, dressed to the nines in its fancy gray leather suit....