In the Beginning

Well if I can’t get enough of blogging about cycling, now I am blogging about my photography. I have started to sell my work on Image Kind. It is a community of artist who sell their work using this site. The nice thing about this site is that not only can you order prints but canvas prints as well. They also can frame the work you have bought which saves time on your home decorating time.

I am starting out with the free site but as my prints sell I hope to move up my membership to a more attractive website. I have seen some of the templates for the upscale website and they look very good. Most of the work that I have placed on the site has been shot more recently around the house.

As far as new subjects I am planning to shoot more landscapes of Iowa while I ride my bike. What I plan to do is pick up a rack for the back and a bag that will hold my camera equipment and just ride around. My first assignment is to photograph the storms of spring. I plan to use my car for this one for the bike would be too slow to get to places and too dangerous for an escape. I am looking to get shots of lightning and wall clouds moving over the landscape. I plan to do this all in black and white. In fact I hope to do the majority of my work in black and white. I like color but I tend to like color photographs that there is one or two colors only. Color is nice but can be distracting which can tend not convey texture or feel of the subject unless it is muted or almost monochromatic.

I love film and will shoot with it when I can but for the most part I have to shoot digitally and use
Photoshop as an alternate darkroom. So whatever limitations I have in the darkroom will be same limitation I have in Photoshop.

I shoot with a Nikon D80 with a 24 to 80mm and 70 to 210mm lens. I also have a Mamiya 220c in which I can satisfy my film needs. The nice thing about the medium format is that I can make really large prints once I can put my darkroom together. Until then this sight and my local photo lab will be my way of outputting my work.

So what was my first camera? The 35mm film camera I shot with was an Argus C3, the brick. This camera uses a range finder for focusing, a leaf shutter in the lens and had a range from bulb to I believe a 500th of a second. I got great photos from it because the lens glass was cut so well. The one thing it did well is double exposures. The shutter cock and film advance was separate from each other. With this combination you had to pay attention when you use this camera.

I love photography and the images I have produced over the years. Not only is my photography is about creating the images that please me but please others. I know I will not be around forever but I hope that if my prints are out there a little piece of me will live on.

Enjoy My images