The difference between a kid’s picture, a photo, and a portrait: There are phone pictures. Millions. Ubiquitous. Forgotten. There are school photos. Representational. Identifying. Mechanical. And then there are film portraits. Artful. Creative. Lasting. I was thinking about how the families that often schedule a portrait session with me and my Rolleiflex for their children,... Continue Reading →

People who are into film photography often talk about how much they love film compared to digital because it’s so much more unpredictable. They say digital is perfect, sterile even, and they can’t wait to see what they will get with film because they embrace film’s imperfections. I suppose they mean a photograph like this.... Continue Reading →

There is something extra special to being a photographer and having the ability to watch someone light up as a result of the work we make. I usually meet a friend for a beer at a local BBQ pub called Smokin’ Dave’s, and the bartender who is always cheerful has gotten to know us since... Continue Reading →

The Worldwide Kelby Photo Walk was on this past Saturday evening and there was a local walk being held in Fort Collins, just about an hour north of Denver. When Paul Trantow, a photographer friend called and said let’s go and I said sure. The thing is, I love meeting other photographers–I’m a big fan... Continue Reading →

If you’ve ever admired the timeless elegance of classic black and white celebrity portraits—like these intimate, soul-revealing photographs of Meryl Streep, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Audrey Hepburn, Jimi Hendrix, and Mick Jagger—you’re not alone. These portraits don’t just capture a likeness; they capture a moment, a presence, a truth. And here’s the... Continue Reading →

Sally Mann has a new book out called Art Work: On the Creative Life. It was released this week and I ordered it on Audible which was a good choice as she is the one who reads the book. It was like she was in my car all week sharing stories. She’s a wordsmith–in addition... Continue Reading →

Bill Shapiro, a former Life Magazine editor-in-chief, and Grant Scott raise that very question on the podcast, A Photographic Life-373: The Conversation with Bill Shapiro ‘What Is Street Photography?’ I have an answer for them. Street photography is full of cliches like people with red umbrellas walking past a yellow newspaper box and a building... Continue Reading →

Today, I played with an Olympus Pen S half-frame camera at the local flea market. I’ve had film in this camera for years and it seemed daunting to find enough subjects to fill 72 frames on a 36-exposure roll of Ilford HP5. But I read a recent article by Johnny Martyr on his use of... Continue Reading →

I found this 5×7 at a local Denver camera store on a shelf, and the salesperson said it’s just a shelf queen–on one of the rails, the gear was coming apart. It’s a Gundlach 5×7 camera also known as a Korona View camera. It looked better to me than one that should be sitting on... Continue Reading →

I’ve been posting the American Street Portraits I made on my cross-country road trip from Boulder to Brooklyn and back on social media a couple times a week since I’ve been back, a different city each post, and I hadn’t gone out this Labor Day weekend to make more. Then, yesterday late afternoon, I looked... Continue Reading →

Last weekend I had a good portrait session with a beautiful family. I offer color sessions as well as color/black and white sessions. This family asked for both color and black and white. They’re the type of client that I especially love. I worked with a Nikon DSLR for the color portraits and for the... Continue Reading →

One of my favorite types of clients is one who lets me loose to create whatever I want however I want to do it. This week, a local singer songwriter who sounds ready to step onto the national stage contacted me wanting to make promotional photographs for her online presence, press kit and promotional materials.... Continue Reading →

They say you can never go back. They’re wrong. I went back to Pennsylvania to my childhood home and found multiple boxes of my black and white photo prints from photojournalist days working at The Trenton Times newspaper. There’s a gallery on my portfolio site. Some familiar faces. Hand-printed photographs from sports, business, feature and... Continue Reading →

You can walk into a lot of different situations and look around and it seems like there’s nothing there to photograph. Like the Boulder County Fair fair I went to on Saturday. When I entered, there were the usual families walking toward rides and games, plus people lined up to get on rides. Some spinning... Continue Reading →

I made the drive from Boulder to New York. Over two weeks in July, I crossed a northern route (mostly I-80) to my shoot in Brooklyn, seeing the country and making the trip an adventure along the way. I went through, stopped and made street portraits in 11 states total: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,... Continue Reading →

Essentially, that’s what photography is. I get to take you along and show you what I’ve seen. Which is quite amazingly cool if you think about it. How as photographers, we can let people experience parts of our day–the individual moments that collectively make up our lives. I was in Brooklyn for a conference photo... Continue Reading →

I’ve been considering making a two-week road trip, Colorado to New York, and making street portraits of folks all along the way. The question I have is, “Will I be able to get people in small rural towns? I suppose in cities I will be able to–Omaha, Chicago, Cleveland–but some of the stops along the... Continue Reading →

Anyone who says the best camera is the one that you have with you is a person who’s used to settling. A person for who good enough is good enough. The best camera is the one you thought to pack based on your experience to do the job well. Of course, you can’t photograph the... Continue Reading →

I was noticing how my street portraits don’t quite look like other photographers’ street portraits and was wondering why. When I watch videos by other street portrait photographers, I see them photographing people right where they stopped them, and not posing them at all, which achieves a look much different from mine. There’s a video... Continue Reading →

I’ve had people comment on my American Street Portraits project when they see the portraits that they look forward each weekend to my posts–to meeting who I show in my gallery. That’s quite the response. Which drives me to keep going out. Because I also want to see who I will meet each week with... Continue Reading →

As an added perk to shop and gear talk, having photographer friends mean we sometimes make portraits of each other. And good ones, too! Like this one from my friend Paul Trantow, a commercial photographer in Denver. I always say when a photographer asks me what they should photograph, “Photograph your friends and family and... Continue Reading →

Film photography is an art form that allows you to create images to make a picture exactly the way you want it to look. In the late 1800s, photographers turned to soft-focus lenses to create a painterly look and to deviate from true representational photographs. The rules of photography are set, but you can bend... Continue Reading →

My friend Clark and I usually meet on Tuesdays around 2 or 3 o’clock for a drink before we go to the Tuesday night photographers gathering I host in my town. As a photographer, of course I take a camera with me everywhere. One Tuesday a few weeks ago, I was carrying a Nikon F3... Continue Reading →

Outside of my commercial work, my photographic world is mainly black and white. But there comes a time for a bit of color, and when that time arrives, I turn to digital cameras. In this case, I was hired to photograph a lovely older couple, Hazel and Art, who had just celebrated their 50th wedding... Continue Reading →

Someone saw me with two cameras and lenses at a local pub this week after leaving a photo shoot and said, “This is all I need,” and proceeded to wave their iPhone. They then showed me a sunset photo with no foreground other than some electrical wires and a row of trash cans, saying, “See... Continue Reading →

Nobody. Nobody is better than you. Nobody is better than anyone else. I was at Stephen Tebo’s Garage recently where he has a collection of over 300 classic vehicles. (That’s John Lennon’s white Rolls Royce at left in the photograph below.) Stephen is a big Boulder real estate developer worth an estimated $14 billion. I... Continue Reading →

I’ve heard people say to photographers who are shooting at 20 or more frames per second: “Why not just shoot video and then pull a still frame from that instead of shooting a still camera?” Which got me thinking: Is that what the phone camera is essentially doing? If I hold up a color slide... Continue Reading →

I have a photographic problem. It’s real. I’ve been a working photographer–a photojournalist and commercial photographer–for over 30 years. Closer to 40 than 30, to be more specific. Let’s just say a long time. In those years, I’ve learned a thing or two about focus, exposure and composition. It’s ingrained. Comes easy. Muscle memory. Composition... Continue Reading →

Because I need more photo projects! Actually, I do, I welcome more photography work. Yes, I work as a commercial photographer and I know there are some that say they never pick up their camera if they’re not making a paycheck, but that’s not me. When I’m not working for a client, I’m working for... Continue Reading →

The person I photographed this weekend for my American Street Portraits project, on the final frame, number 12, blinked. Blinked! Even though I had said, “Don’t blink!” Which meant there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to use her portrait. That got me thinking–I had another roll of film with me, why not make... Continue Reading →