kdee64's photostream  

An amateur nature and landscape photographer for about 40 years, I'm a semi-retired youth worker in a treatment facility for cognitively and behaviourally challenged adolescents in Whitehorse Yukon, north of the 60th parallel in Canada. I try to help a bit with volunteer community service, such as the local food bank and soup kitchen. Finally, I have the time for photography, to try and perfect my composition skills, as well as digital camera and post-processing technique.

As a nature photographer, my goal is to celebrate the infinite beauty of the natural world with photographs. My images have been used by online publications, newspapers, magazines, businesses, educational institutions and conservation initiatives internationally. These include: Wikipedia, Mother Nature Network, Hello Magazine, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and other national newspapers in Europe. I was honoured when asked to have some of my photos included in a collection of work by top-class nature photographers from around the world, a project that aims to preserve digital images of the world's wildlife species for posterity. This is an initiative of the London-based ARKive organization, partly the brainchild of David Attenborough.

I'm not into marketing myself nor am I any good at that sort of thing. If you're interested in any of my work, it is available at no cost to non-profit organizations--just send me a Flickr mail and I will provide an original file. To purchase an original file or high quality fine-art prints, please contact me at my Flickr mail or Hotmail to make arrangements that suit your needs: kdee64@hotmail.com
(I can also provide an interesting, well-written article/story suitable for publication to go with any of my photos)

I inherited my creative side from my mother who was a water-colour and acrylic artist, as well as an actress trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Other than photography, I'm into birding, outdoors activities, natural history, movies, art, technology, music, cooking, markets, political affairs, having a good laugh and drinking a little red wine or good ale. I'm a naturally curious person with hunger for a wide range of knowledge. To me, photography is the ultimate fusion of art and technology, and those with a strong sense of creative vision, who have also mastered the technology and software, are best equipped to produce outstanding images. On those few occasions that I create a decent image, it is often the result of hard work, planning, time and effort.

There is often too much emphasis on expensive gear and formula style in photography, usually not enough on the all-important creative side. A truly outstanding photo is usually the result of a great composition, interesting and original subject matter, attractive light and colour. Though many of my favourite landscape photographers do eye-popping renditions of much-photographed photogenic scenes, my work is focused on creative, original images of the Northern landscape. In my opinion, photographic excellence is about the photographer and creative vision, not about having the latest and most expensive camera/lens to take yet another spectacular formula photograph of a popular photogenic venue. The best images of all time are original compositions taken with equipment we would now consider primitive.

I find the full-frame cameras and big expensive glass too cumbersome and heavy to carry around for nature photography in this rugged Yukon landscape. There are few trails here and I must often bush-whack to get the shot. Currently I shoot with the superb little ( 1 lb.) 10 mp Nikon D60 of which I now own 3, all mounted on different lenses so I'm instantly ready to shoot from 10mm through to 500mm. I also shoot with the Nikon 16 mp D7000, a truly impressive little camera.

Most digital images need a fair bit of correction for colour, contrast, luminosity and sharpness, both globally and to specific areas. In recent years, I have reluctantly embraced the fact that sophisticated digital processing/editing techniques are a critical part of the work-flow, as important as photographic technique. All of the pioneering masters would have agreed, had they lived in the digital age. A tasteful application of software in the digital darkroom is an art form itself, enabling the photographer to best convey his or her unique vision and memory of the scene. I work diligently toward mastering camera and software skills to achieve optimum artistic impact and best reflect that vision.

Popularity does not equal quality. Some of the more uninspired, boring photos posted on Flickr get hundreds or even thousands of views. On the other hand, many aesthetically brilliant, creative images get only a handful of "views" "comments". "favs".These seem to be unreliable indicators of a photograph's quality, something I believe needs to acknowledged more on Flickr. Certainly, the photographer should know intuitively if his/her image is outstanding or perhaps not so great, though I suspect it's human nature to seek the approval of others, regardless of image quality.

By design, I have a relatively small contact list, trimming those who don't return my comments to keep the stream of photos on my homepage limited to what I can comfortably take in. When I am able, I take the time to view and comment on my contacts' work, however, I expect the same in return, within reason of course. I rarely comment for some contacts because they never return the favour. Commenting and viewing can be time-consuming, so please forgive me if I don't always reciprocate by adding you as a contact, if you have listed me as one. However, like everybody, I appreciate comments, and constructive criticism is especially welcome if it will improve my work.