Charleston City Overlook

Take the familiar and make it fresh.

I’ve seen similar shots of Charleston, WV; some at night- some during the day- but none in the evening setting sun.
It has a different feel all together in this light- and yet, I’m sure I’ll go back and shoot it again to capture another mood of the city. Even the most beautiful subject is plain without “something special” in the lighting department! ( I still didn’t get the exact shot I wanted- I previsualized something that I have yet to capture…)
Light creates what a subject has to say- and as a photographer, if you listen, you can sense the meaning and translate it visually into something intelligable for others to share. 
This is your purpose as a storyteller.

15 Year update #2

I’ve sort of gotten bogged down looking thru my negatives and slides lately- I’m catagorizing them into “scan piles” or which ones I think are the best use of valuable scanner time!

15 year update #1

I’ve found that after the first couple of steps on any journey, the road seems easier to travel. Keeping that in mind……

I’ve started going thru old slides and editing the ones to scan- we are talking thousands here! I have counted close to 5,000 being thrown away so far!
One of the things to realize, especially for those that have never shot film before ( can that really be true!?!-YEP ) is that as a slide shooter B.D. ( Before Digital) I would have to shoot multiple frames of the same subject in case I needed to send an original off for publication, or if one got a scratch or something.
And of course, there were those slides that I previously kept that were the best I could do at the time. With time comes experience, and with experience comes a more critical eye- hence , the massive editing of my slides!

The cool thing is, in a way, it’s become a retrospective look at where I’ve been- and this isn’t always possible with digital. We tend to delete what doesn’t work and keep the “keepers”- With slides and negatives, you have to go back and thru them occasionally to see what you’ve got- and then it’s there right in front of you- your mistakes you’ve learned from, the images that almost worked, the things you see you want to go back and re-shoot, etc.
That’s where I’m at now- I’ve found images/slides that have inspired me to go and reshoot them, to do them better now that I can. 
I moved on from film years ago- I don’t miss scanning frames and touching up dust- something I’ll be facing again REALLLLY SOOOOON! But as far as the experience, I wouldn’t trade it for anything- In order to see where you’re going; sometimes you’ve got to see where you’ve been….

Here’s the link to the original “15 years”  post- You’ll be able to find this series by looking at the tags on the right if you want

Is free really free?…..

I ran across this post from Matt Brown today-Free Is Killing Me- If you really want to know the cost of “free photography” here it is…

People are not entitled to use your vision and experience without compensation unless you yourself think YOUR work has no value! If that is the case; Keep in mind you are hurting those who do…

15 years of stuff

I’ve been very good about my workflow and making sure that all new images have been catagorized and put in my computer system for easy retrieval, but what about all the previous work I’ve done? well, read on….