Silverscape's photostream

SIlverscape....landscape photos captured in silver halide. (I use FILM!)





I was born in Chicago, Illinois in October 1977. I've grown up completely surrounded by modern technology, but I believe in doing many things the old school way because it's more interesting. You could say I'm a walking contradiction. I've grown up with computers, and the Internet has been around for most of my life now. I download most of my music. But I also like listening to the antique AM vacuum tube radios in my collection. I also have a collection of old wind-up 8mm movie cameras, and so far I've shot 6 rolls of movie film. I have an 8 megapixel digital camera, but 90 percent of the pictures I take now are with film. I'm young, but I'm probably a very old soul. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade.

I'm new to real photography, and I'm still learning. But I feel as if I'm already beginning to develop a certain style. Maybe it's a rebellion against all the endless and meaningless "kewl pics" I see on MySpace and everywhere else on the internet. I prefer to take my time and take real photographs. Maybe they're not perfect, but the result is still much more rewarding than from just aiming a camera and pressing a button. I feel like I'm learning a lot more and I can be much more creative with a completely manual film camera. I'm especially interested in landscape pictures. In an age where it seems as if every bit of empty and undeveloped land is being swallowed up by urban sprawl, I try to capture pastoral scenes where architecture blends into the natural landscape. My goal is to capture photos in such a way that for just a fleeting moment, we can see a small slice of a peaceful scene in the middle of a developed suburb or city. I love how landscape pictures taken on real black and white film look so timeless and ambiguous - they could have been taken yesterday, or maybe 50 years ago.

I have a lot of other interesting and bizarre hobbies. I experiment with high voltage, including a Tesla Coil I built that can generate over 100,000 volts at high frequency. Or experiments with my neon transformers, which if I connect them all together can supply 15,000 volts at nearly 2,000 watts. There's nothing quite like seeing a flaming arc of pure electricity in the air! Sometimes, I like taking pictures of high voltage - so it's a neat way of combining two of my favorite hobbies :)

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UPDATE

I lost a good friend recently and now I am trying to come to terms with it and learn how to best honor his memory and legacy. I plan to post more photos of my friend Tom and some of his drawings and pictures of the places where he liked to go. I feel it's my duty to tell the world who he was.