About
me… That’s a tall order but here goes!
So many photographers tell of the first time they picked up a camera, usually at young age, and usually a family member’s piece of gear. That first moment cemented their love of photography and from then on they knew what it was they would do and it involved a camera ever after. For me, I came to photography a bit later, in a high school photography class taken almost as an after-thought.
I also recall that first camera, the one that started this for me. The dented and dingy little thing that I first held up to my eye. A Pentax K-1000… I remember all the hours I spent in the dark room, pulling film out of cans of developer and watching as my view of the world was transferred to paper. I can still smell the fixer, still hear the sound of the running water in the baths and I still feel that camera bouncing against my chest as I ran from class to class, only ever wanting to be taking another photo.
It has taken me some years to come to this point, of building a business out of photography, but every day I know more and more that I love being a photographer, in so much as I am. I am most myself when I have a camera strapped around my neck, when I am grabbing at moments and putting them to ‘film’.
I remember my first ‘killer’ shot and how I felt like a genius and a king of the world at the same time. I have that same king-of-the-world feeling almost every day as I continue to shoot photographs. Even so, I continue looking for that perfect shot, I keep working to capture on film what I see with my eyes. I enjoy Henri Cartier-Bresson’s take on the matter…
“What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values.”
”To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”
c“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.”
I could go on and on with quotes from this, my kindred spirit of sorts, but all in all, photography moves me. It is that simple. I’ve been lucky enough to have moved from Pickerington, OH to San Francisco, CA only to land in Atlanta, GA most recently; all the while my camera in tow. And whether you are a novice shooter, a life-long pro, a potential customer or just a curious individual who happened here by accident drop me a line. Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk about what photography is and will be. Let’s talk about what it is about a great photograph that moves us as photogs and as people. For though a photo is worth a thousand words I still enjoy using words from time to time all the same.
{KW}
“For me photography is to place head, heart and eye along the same line of sight. It is a way of life.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson