Making a Senior Portrait on Black and White 4×5, (Not That Kind of Senior Portrait!)

I love having a job as a working photographer that permits me to meet new people constantly.When I'm between assignments or client work, which usually is Mondays, I open my studio to local senior citizens age 70 and over to come in for a complimentary portrait.I get to work with whatever camera I want since...

Goals: 2022

Here comes a new year. What are we doing with it? What are our goals? I am quite prolific as an artist, working on a series of personal photography projects--The Wise Photo Project, Roy Stryker Photography Project--as well as teaching and leading other people and hopefully being an inspiration to some. But it's not enough....

Gauche in the Living Room? No Way! (Changing The World, One Photograph at a Time)

It's a quite different world nowadays the way we use photography from when I was growing up. When I was a kid, there were regular visits to the portrait studio or a school photographer would setup in our auditorium to make our class photos. There was something to it--the lights, the camera, the tripod, the...

Making a Photographic Difference

Legacies. Making a mark on the world. The reason for being here. The point. What's yours? Mine's obvious to me. Like Eugene Atget's goal of documenting old Paris before it changed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which he knew was his life's goal, even if no one else knew about it while he...

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...

The Wise Photo Project in Local News (Or How I’m Changing The World)

A story about The Wise Photo Project ran in today’s Longmont Leader, a local news source in Boulder County Colorado. As noted in the article, the project seeks other photographers, maybe you, to contribute to it. Support The Shows Want to support my shows? You can, just visit this link at Paypal, or go to...

The Wise Photo Project Expands

Big news. I've had several people contact me about creating portraits for The Wise Photo Project now that I've announced I've opened it up to photographers everywhere. And today I see that just that has happened. There were two photographs made and posted on our Facebook group page by photographer Mark Smith working in Aurora...

Adding a Chair to the Portrait Studio

For The Wise Photo Project, I've photographed people either standing or sitting on a red Victorian couch in my studio. So, when it became time to add a chair, I looked to Berenice Abbott for inspiration--she had a favorite chair that she posed people in and so, I went out looking for something similar, something...

Here’s To (the Gift of) Good Light

I received an email from the Chimera company the other day, a photo and video lighting company which is based here in Boulder, and they said they read had my story in the local paper about The Wise Photo Project (which you can join and I hope you do), and they wrote they would be...