Chuck_893's photostream  

First and foremost, I am not an artist. I make no pretension to art. I once was a craftsman, a skilled technician. I know how to get the picture, but imagination? Not so much. I have, honestly, probably forgotten more nuts-and-bolts photography than a lot of working professionals today ever knew. I considered that I worked with my hands, and (hopefully) my eye. I have to say that I am blown away by much of what I see on this site. The artistry of some (most!) other folks makes me a little ashamed to be here, but I have no imagination and I know it. So, what you see is what you get. Nuts; bolts; craftsmanship…

I was a working professional photographer for close to 30 years, most of it self-employed with my own studio. I specialized primarily in portraits and weddings, which may account for why my photography now almost totally excludes people. For reasons I rarely discuss, I "hung up my guns" for over 10 years, literally refusing even to pick up a camera, but just a few years ago I returned to photography using a little digital Nikon L12 point-and-shoot. For almost three years I worked exclusively with a Nikon P5000 that I bought when it was already obsolete—it had been supplanted by the Nikon P5100 which I judged to be not as sharp. As of spring 2011 I have upgraded once again to the Nikon P7000, an impressively sophisticated tool, yet still compact and not requiring the schlepping of a 50-pound camera case full of toys.

I'm a little obsessive about using only what the basic camera provides. If I can't at least figuratively tuck it in my jacket pocket, I want nothing to do with it. There's a certain discipline imposed by limiting myself to the basic camera with its zoom lens (I do love a zoom). I rarely use flash, preferring available light (or dark). I use no accessories except, rarely, a tripod, and I avoid even that. I don't generally mind boosting the ISO as high as necessary to make the picture. Noise, to me, is just the equivalent of film grain, and I never much minded grain when I was working. I do, however, try to minimize it, but I will often reject a picture if it is not wire sharp. I should say up front, though, that every image is tweaked — reworked, post-processed — because I spent far too many years in a darkroom dodging and burning and flashing (and, and, and) not to. I tend to think of every capture as a negative, and the negative is not the finished photograph. I definitely do not mean to compare myself with the legendary Ansel Adams, but Adams likened the negative to a musical score, and the print to a performance. You could print the same negative multiple times and get different final results. I like that concept.

I like to do photo essays. I like to explore aspects of a subject. What I do now is probably best described as, perhaps sadly, snapshots — but I hope to make interesting snapshots, quality snapshots. I wish it were art, but [*sigh*] I just haven't got it in me.