Not quite 20 questions.

[Guest]

So I was just sittin here wondering how did we get where we are at now in photography?

 

What do we like photographing?

 

Where do we like photographing?

 

Where do we want your photography to lead to?

 

Jim

 

Also if you want to add any questions to this thread let me or a moderator know and it will get added here.

[Guest]

How did we get where we are at now in photography?

I started out with taking pictures with my sisters Minolta 35mm then when I was starting my senior year in highschool I found out I had a lot of free time on my hands and I saw the school offered a black and white photography class so I took that. I ended up with my pentax 35mm for my birthday from my folks and took the photography class for my entire senior year. Then strange things started happening with my eyes to where they didn't focus really well and I stopped wasting money on film and getting blurry pictures back. Then in May of this year my dad had left me a little bit of money after he passed away last year and I picked up my Pentax ist DL with that and haven't looked back.

 

What do we like photographing?

I love taking photos of the outdoors, sunrise, sunset, animals, landscapes and the moon.

 

Where do we like photographing?

My favorite place right now is about 10 minutes from my house. It is called "Fountain Creek Nature Center". I can get there pretty quickly after work and take some shots and unwind after a day of working.

 

Where do we want your photography to lead to?

I go with my sister to a Christmas craft sale the first weekend of December (she does handcrafts). I would llike to sell a couple of prints there (not framed) then sometime next year I would like to get a website up and maybe sell a few photos of that.

 

Jim

[Isonychia 0]

OK, here goes...

 

I like photographing outdoor sports (fishing, hunting, shooting, kayaking) and nature (wildlife, scenics). Because I'm an outdoors writer for a newspaper, a lot of my shots end up in print.

 

My favorite place to photograph so far is Glacier National Park. During one magic summer-solstice evening drive over the Going to the Sun Highway, I burned through 10 rolls of 36-exposure Kodachrome. I got rained on and snowed on, photographed mountain goats at arm's-length distances, and enjoyed a spectacular sunset.

 

I'd like to see my photos more consistenly published in national magazines. So far I've had a few shots make it, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Seems the mags would rather buy my words than my photos...

 

John

[Guest]

Thanks for replying John. I agree with you taking shots of the outdoors, that is where I'm at the majority of the time when I'm not at work. I bet that was a blast going through GNP like that John.

 

If this is taboo to ask questions like this let me know.

 

Thanks

Jim

[Isonychia 0]

It's definitely not taboo, Jim. I think it's just a little difficult for most folks to capsulize. Personally, I waited several hours to respond because I couldn't get my thoughts together when I read the original post. I suspect others will do the same.

 

John

[Guest]

Is it due to the way I worded it John? As you can tell I'm no writer by any definition of the word. Maybe I was too vague. I know I started thinking about these questions Sunday morning and it took me till Sunday afternoon to post them and then I still had to go back and edit them to where I thought they came out clearer.

 

Jim

[Graham 0]

I think this is the start of a great topic Jim, and John's reply is very interesting.

 

My first camera, about twenty years ago was an Olympus OM10, which I enjoyed shooting with. I did not have much of an understanding of how to use most of its capabilities, but I do have boxes full of old photos taken in a number of countries, including views the top of the Eiffel tower, and many other travels. Unfortunately, the camera was stolen in an airport and my replacement camera was a point and shoot film camera. In 1999 I bought a 3mp Sony DSC-70, for about $800 and I fell in love with digital photography, likely because it saved me from spending so much $ at my local Ritz camera having my photos developed. In June of 06 I bought a Nikon D200, was clearly in over my head, just like when I bought my first computer back in the mid 80s’, and decided I will learn how to use it. I’ve spent countless hours reading books, magazines and the internet, and combining that with countless hours with camera in hand has brought me closer to achieving confidence in my abilities as a photographer.

 

I like photographing natural things that strike me as beautiful, which leaves me with an unlimited number of images I look forward to capturing.

 

It's hard for me to pin down a favorite place to photograph because the Sierra would top the list, but I haven't had time to go there this year, perhaps in a week or so, but I've been saying that since winter. Currently my favorite place is a small city lake here in Los Angeles, where wild birds often stop while migrating, as well as number of beautiful resident birds. Another favorite place is upstate New York State where the scenery and wildlife is incredibly beautiful. I'll be spending two weeks in the NY countryside starting at the end of this month, and I hope to capture and share my experiences. Now that I think about it, I’d dearly love to go back to Chile again, and someday spend time in Alaska. I look at a globe and wish to travel extensively with my camera. I traveled a lot growing up, moved many times, was born in Malaysia lived there for six years, also lived in Australia, England, Canada, and several States, have numerous memories of beautiful places and wildlife. As a kid one of my favorite things to receive as a gift was books containing photos of wildlife.

 

 

I think what I want to achieve with my photography is to capture peak apex moments in time. Imagine watching a video clip about an event in nature, there will be one single frame that is that best expresses the beauty, excitement and glory of the experience. I want to clearly capture those moments and share them with others. When you sit back and remember a trip, perhaps involving fly fishing, your mind really doesn’t flow like watching a video, instead it’s single frame images, and your mind captures these peak moments to store for later enjoyment. I’d like to print these moments.

 

I hope my creativeness and joy as a photographer never becomes compromised with a profit motive. But, weaving as fabric of creativity, skill and growing desire to be published certainly sounds appealing.

 

Graham

[Isonychia 0]

They're clear enough. I think it'll just take folks a while to formulate their answers.

 

John

[Guest]

Ok John, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something that I could have made clearer.

 

Thanks

Jim

[JayMorr 0]

My first camera was a Minnolta 35mm. It was a hand me down from my father when I was in highschool. I love art and thought that it would be great taking a photography class on top of the commercial art class and creative writing.

 

I processes all of the photos in the school lab and learned a lot. I really didn't pick up photography again until my son Ben was born in 2000. With the advances in photography I purchased a Canon Rebel and really started taking photos. I switched to a small HP digital, I think it was 3mp at the time and the photos were coming out grainy. I sold it and purchased in 2004 the Olympus C-750 4mp Digital point and shoot and really started falling in love with Digital media and Photoshop.

 

I really enjoy photographing my kids. I also enjoy taking photos of Mayflies and insects. Sky is the limit when taking photos....I really just like shooting anything that seems interesting.

 

I recently hooked up my Sons xbox360 and synced it up on my small network at home. It pulls all my photos and media and when I have small family parties I set the photos on shuffle and get the slide show going. They look good on the HD 65inch It is a great time commenting on photos and where they were taken.

 

I love photography! I will admit that flyfishing has been my passion most of my life but I almost get more satisfaction sitting around the bank and watching a close friend or my kids enjoy the fishing. I snap up as many photos as I can and hopefully one day they will appreciate it as they look back on all the fun times.

 

I think I would like to build a more formal website of my photography. Mainly for friends and family. I am in the software industry and already do a lot of that so when I get some time I might put something together. I also want to frame a lot of my prints for the house remodel we are doing. It would be neat to display them in some of the rooms. Who knows where photography will lead me but I love it and consider it a true Art! I really enjoy sharing my stuff with you guys and I love seeing all of your work! It inspires me to become a better photographer and I have already learned so much from all of you.

 

Great post Jim!

 

I love shooting photos with my New XTi!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jasonmorr

[Isonychia 0]

Sorry, Jim. I plumb missed your first question about how I got started in photography.

 

I got my start at age 11 when my parents gave me a Kodak Instamatic camera for Christmas. Before the day was over, I had cut photos of big-game species out of an old issue of Field & Stream and was photographing the cutouts in the "jungle" of my backyard.

My interest lay dormant through college until I took a photography (wet darkroom) course in college. My first job was as a 16mm film cinematographer/reporter for a local TV station, and I honed my skills there. I bought my first SLR (an old Mamiya/Sekor with thread-mount lenses) in 1978.

I stepped up to a Nikon FM2 in 1984. I went autofocus with an N90 in the early 1990s, a few years after I started writing (and shooting) for the newspaper.

In 1999, the managing editor of the newspaper came to me and said, "We're going digital. Unless you want the staff photographers to shoot your stuff, you'll get one."

"Let me get this straight," I replied. "You're going to buy the staff photographers their cameras, but I have to buy mine?"

"That's about the size of it."

So I went digital, with a Nikon D1 that cost me close to 5 grand. Used it until it crapped out in 2003, then switched to a D100. Upgraded to a D2H in 2005 and have used it ever since. I LOOOOVE digital! Being able to review images has allowed me to make corrections in the field and learn more quickly from mistakes.

 

John

[Ashby 0]

Where it all started.

Well, I think I got my start from watching my mom cary around her Pentax K1000 when I was a kid, around 8yrs old. The lens for that thing was bigger than the camera and had one heck of a zoom on it. Eventually she got a newer camera and the K1000 went to my Uncle. When I was around 20 or so, he gave the camera to me and I still have it to this day. At the time it was made, it was top of the line for one wishing to get into photography. It still works great, shoot unbelievable pictures and is easy enough to be fun if you just want to blow through some wet film.

 

What do we like photographing?

Since I was a little kid, I never could get enough of outdoor photo. Scenery pictures are my favorite to shoot. I love all there is to love about the outdoors and love even more to see it captured in a great picture. I don't always manage to get that great picture, but when I do, man I could just look at it forever. There is nothing better than being able to sit back and think to yourself, there just is nothing I would change about that picture and have everyone else think the same.

 

Where do we like photographing?

I love to take pictures outdoors. The lighting is easier to get right, and there are more chalanges when it comes to taking pictures of animals/insects as well. I don't mind taking indoor photos as long as I can keep my ISO down to around 600 to 100. Usually my daughters basketball pictures are shot around 500 and up for lighting purposes for shutter speed, that drives me nuts. I hate noise in a picture, but with my camera I have to except a little bit.

 

Where do I want my photography to lead?

I'm not sure. Right now I'm happy taking my pics that I like to take. I have thought of getting a bigger SLR camera and may one day. It just all depends on how far I want to go with it. At that point I may get a little more serious about it.

 

Ashby

 

 

 

[Hardyhead 0]

 

Ok, well I like this topic, so here goes:

 

I got my photography start while working in a research lab at the University of Minnesota. We were doing experiments on what could be described as a simulated wing flying through the rain. We had a thin film of water moving over a plate in about a 15 mph breeze in a wind tunnel. There were several interesting patterns that developed on the water during the testing, caused by eddies travelling across the plate. Attempting to capture these on film became quite a challenge, we had to photograph the water travelling over a reflective surface through 1" thick plexi-glass. Took a few months to figure out a good way to do it, but we got it eventually, and that is how I learned. During these experiments I spent quite a bit of time in a darkroom with black and white film prints, most turned out to be a mess of glares and blurriness as we worked out a good method for pictures.

 

The thing I love about photography is that often a simple photograph can take your breath away. Many of the landscapes and bird photographs you folks have posted have been very inspiring, even the pictures of flies you folks post are great. When I take a picture of something, it's usually because I myself am moved by what I am photographing. Sometimes, I photograph to capture good times with friends, other times I see something I just cannot resist. I once took a photo of a house with a sign that said 'Free House', parked next to the house was an old run down truck that said 'For Sale $600'. How can you not photograph stuff like that?

 

I love to take pictures outdoors, like Graham, I am forever obsessed with the high sierra mountains. Some of the best days of my life are spent there, hiking, climbing, and fishing. Honestly, if I did not have to work, I would probably live in a shack in the mountains somewhere, and eventually get eaten by a bear When I look at other people's photography, I am often stunned by an images of people, but it's not something I photograph myself. Oddly enough, I often see moments while walking or at some event that I think would look beautiful on film, but most of the time, I don't have a camera.

 

I don't really have a direction or goal for my photography, I am not interested in selling my photos, and consider myself to be quite the amateur, but I enjoy it, and that's what is important to me. Many of my black and whites have become blow-ups on the walls in my home, and a number of others don the walls of my friends. Being a mathematician I have always had a good eye for structure and geometry, as well as the blend between that structure and nature. Often times my photos are a blend of that, and some people really seem to like them. I am still learning my DSLR, it's tricky coming from an old manual SLR. I would really like to get better at using it, so I take photos like mad, fill memory cards, delete pictures, and press onward. Someday I hope to keep more shots than I throw away

 

Great topic.

 

Ryan

[Al Beatty 0]

Hi Jim & group,

 

What a fun question. Quite frankly I hadn't thought about it much until your question brought the idea to the fore. As a young man I had no interest in photography. All I wanted to do was ride bulls and bucking horses and study the finer points of the female of our species. At the age of 25 I was drafted into the Army and through a bunch of circumstances ended up as the secretary for the battalion commander; the battalion was a signal unit and one of the jobs of the Army's signal units was photography. Being the big guy's secretary I didn't have a "place" to stay with other people with my same MOS so I was billeted with the guys in the 9th Division photography section. In no time I was learning about things like hypo, developer. TriX, etc. and of course, cameras. I saved my $ and got a range finder 35mm Yashica and started shooting film like crazy; I got all I wanted from the military and the use of the dark room when ever I was off work.

 

After I'd been into photography for a few months the Ice Capaids <SP> came to a near by town and I got lucky enough to be included with 3 regular military photographers to shoot the event. They all shot flash/4x5 cameras and I shot 35mm candid shots. I got my first published photo in the battalion newletter from that shoot and was really hooked on photography after that.

 

A few months later in 1968 I ended up in Vietnam as a company clerk for a Combat Tracker unit. The job was one that covered a lot of different things not normally done by a clerk including working as the unit's combat photographer. I got several more shots published and came home a few months later.

 

I continued my photography interests by shooting weddings for $ and all kinds of outdoor shots for the fun of it. I had my own dark room where I did color and B&W; it was a fun time. Then I got involved in the "climb" up the corporate ladder and most all of my interests other than fly fishing/tying went by the wayside. I shot a few photos of my fishing trips but more for the fun, not for the $.

 

Years later Gretchen and I retired and moved to Montana to guide, write, and tie flies. I didn't know I'd end up doing photography but one of my first larger writing gig's was Regional Editor for Fly Fish America magazine. I had to travel, fish, and shoot at least 9 trips per year for that job and of course my lovely wife Gretchen went with me. I taught her about F stops, light meters, etc because I was still shooting my old Vietnam era Nikon F (no light meter) using a hand held meter and slide film. I bracketed a lot of exposures in those days. During those years I met/became friends with Jim Schollmeyer and started learning to shoot macro fly shots from him. From there I graduated to shooting my own pictures for fly articles instead of having Jim shoot them for me. Some where along the line I guaduated to digital and quite frankly it is still a bit of a puzzle to me. Thankfully I found all of you and have learned a bunch from this group. I find I learn the most by keeping quiet and reading what all of you post; we a very lucky at this web site when you think about all the talented people we have here. Wow!

 

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Take care & ...

 

Tight Lines - Al Beatty

www.btsflyfishing.com

Flyfisher magazine

[Guest]

Great posts everybody, this has turned out better than I anticipated. There must be some more who wants to add to this thread.

 

Jim