About my photography
Photography has been a part of my life for many years , starting on a Canon 35mm film camera , moving to a Sony DSC S85 4 megapixel digital camera which I used for 19 years until it finally stopped working. I recently found another on ebay which I picked up beyond cheap to have as a backup digital which I use in the shop besides I love shooting with that camera, the photos are great if you understand the camera and its got a great Carl Zeiss lens on it. With great light it still does incredible macro work for a 4 megapixel camera.
The serious side of photography really hit me with product photography , something I had no choice to get involved in since I was photographing my own work for my customers and for my web sites, so this was a must and I kind of just threw myself in and learned how to use the camera and understand light. Shooting in manual was something I've always done, shooting your own art will force you learn how a camera works VERY fast. Auto is unusable for product photos, especially shooting leather. Leather is skin so it absorbs light and bounces it back out in a million different colors depending on the color or colors on the leather so it was an instant disaster. Since I couldnt afford a pro level camera back then I had to learn how that camera wanted to see things and figure out how to work with it. That camera taught me a lot.
So manual mode was it for me, and I've never turned back. Learning to use light, how light prefers to behave and how you can work along with it is the key and a never ending journey in photography. Every day is a discovery . The majority of these photos are right out of camera with no processing, I try to keep them as pure as can be. Any photo with ROOC next to it is straight from the camera with no adjustments . I dont use filters in post processing to achieve a look in my work , I use the camera , distance , height, manipulation of light , aperture through a proper lens to record in camera what I believe is the right look and mood for what I see through the lens so the images maintain real honesty and strength.
I shoot mostly with manual vintage Prime Lenses, I love the color and feel I get from these lenses and I haven't found anything that comes close to my taste in image output from anything else. They're all manual focus and aperture so its a bit tougher to use when you need fast focus but the result is worth it. For portraits I'll sometimes use an AF lens to achieve a certain look but 90% of my work is manual focus. As you can tell from my images I have an affinity for vintage things, it's no different with camera gear. To me, the older and more soul it has the better....
These photos tell stories, places I've been, places I still go, things that caught my eye, abandoned buildings and farm houses I go into to gather memories of times past. Some in such bad shape the floor crumbles when you step on it, stair cases that swing when you climb them. But these buildings are still important , they hold memories as they fall apart to the point no one will go near them except to steal wire to sell and leave huge rips in the walls. But I do, I find an odd beauty in them as they sit empty. The absolute quiet you feel as you sit in one of these buildings is unlike any other you'll ever hear. There is a certain kind of magic in that experience . My hope is that you'll sense that experience through some of my images in the Ruins Page.
Bokeh or background blur as its normally known- Bokeh is created by using a wide aperture to render a busy background into a soft expanse of color, turning small points of light into soft circles. This establishes a shallow depth of field which causes the background to blur. This effect when you see it my images is done in camera with the wide aperture and just the right angle between the lens and light source. It's not an applied filter.
Using a vintage 50mm lens when I shoot these the bokeh is intense and at times can start to look alien. I can get this effect on all of the lenses I use but the 50mm is way ahead in how it renders Bokeh . It tends to group the Bokeh tightly and really rounds them over nicely shot wide open. Its one of my favorite vintage lenses to use...
Example of Bokeh
The feel
Atmosphere..
