This photo uses a north-facing window for a flattering, diffuse light source, a wide aperture for a narrow, dramatic field of focus, and high ISO for a textured grainy effect. Still, the photo wasn’t quite depressing enough to match the weather, so I used Lightroom sliders to increase the shadows and clarity. Finally, pushed the …
What People Do to Kids
The empty chair in this photo represents all those kids who aren’t love or protected. The starkness and shadowing represent the despair I feel every time there is another news story about a broken, abused or murdered child. As a father, I take each and every one of these stories like a punch in the …
Essential Skill: Swimming.
As an older parent, raising a young child, I want my daughter to choose the extra-curricular activities that help her express the woman that she is becoming, and I do not want to spend valuable emotional currency attempting to force her into courses and activities that do not sync with her sense of self. That …
Abstract Portrait
Straightforward portraits have their place, but if you really want to mix things up a bit, try to look at your subject from an angle that evokes emotion, intimacy, or even an angle that makes you question your perspective. This angle represents the image less traveled. Take it for what it’s worth.
You Don’t Need the Latest Camera to Create Great Images: Thresholded B&W
My fascination with Black and White images continues. Here is a photo I took this summer with a 12 year old, 5 megapixel underwater camera that still works. I took this little camera along on some of my best dive trips ever and it brought back a wonderful sense of deja vu. I also used …
That Retro Film Look
Distracted by film of late, I have begun to see the potential for photos everywhere. In the movie, The Sixth Sense, the young protagonist said, “I see dead people.” I don’t. Instead I see dead technologies and I am impressed. They certainly have their place in today’s world, if only for purists. Somehow in the …
Winter Photography Bites
I find it very difficult to think up subject matter when I’m not getting enough sunshine. It’s a winter funk thing. Still, I can always find something compelling to shoot if I head out to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey. The key here is turn off the flash. Flash = Bad when shooting …
Festival Food: A Great Intro to a Culture
I shot this photo at a Cambodian Festival in Philadelphia in the spring of 2017. The booth sold Cambodian and Thai food, but not as I know Thai food from the restaurants that I have been to. There were salads and colorful drinks that I had never seen before. When I struck up a conversation …
Be Afraid.
“Kim Kardashian made 17 million dollers off her wedding.Divorced 72 days later & they’re worried about gays ruining the sanctity of marriage?” – @WorldGayPride This shot made me think of the above quote that I read. I was tickled at how absurd arguments can be simplified to the absurd logic that they represent. Of course …
Got to Shoot With a Master
Meet Jose ‘Tutes’ Tutiven, an Ecuadorian-American who is getting a ton of great commercial photo work and a lot of acclaim for his abilities. On a whim, I trekked up to Brooklyn to attend the Photoville Photo Festival in Dumbo, right under the Brooklyn Bridge. This is he sixth year running and it was held …