Selling the Steak, But Not the Sizzle

I stopped at a camera store in Allentown Pennsylvania named Dan‘s Camera City and the building was a long tan and blue building that didn’t have an interesting creative exterior, the store's sign was partially overgrow with shubbery, and when I went inside and looked around I thought this is exactly how so many camera...

The Camera as a Powerful Tool

I believe there is power in photography. When I document ordinary people doing ordinary things for the Roy Stryker photo project, I do it because I believe it has the power to change the world. Its goal is to "Introduce America to Americans" and show people in different parts of the country what we all...

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...

Evolution of Photography: A Real-Time Glimpse Instead of a Memory

I'm very well read on the history and trends in photography starting with its discovery in 1839. (Really not that long ago in the grand scheme of things.) The original photographers were few in number, you had to be a scientist and tinkerer to make a photograph. The introduction of the Kodak Brownie camera by...

When The Trend Is In Your Favor

I've been a photojournalist my whole photography career, starting as a staff photographer at a daily newspaper in New Jersey, The Times of Trenton, and have been working editorial assignments ever since. It's my favorite type of work, creating storytelling photographs for publication. So, to have inquiries from people about having photojournalist-style photographs made of...

Do People Still Send Postcards?

I have to admit I love postcards, those wonderful quarter-dollar mailers that at one time were a staple of any trip. I didn't go anywhere without picking up a handful of postcards and spending an evening back at my motel, usually on the last night of the trip, addressing cards to family and friends, stamping...