Books and Essays I’ve recently read:
The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
War of the Classes, Jack London
Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau
Liberalism And Socialism, Winston Churchill

Working on:
On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx (#1 most dangerous book by the American Heritage Foundation)

The rhetoric present in our nation has been laced with classic definitions turned to epithets. The “spectre of socialism” has not been the least of these.

At some point in my adult life, not too long ago, I stopped standing by my opinions and those of others. At that point, I began asking more questions than answering them. It seemed to me, there were a great many things I did not understand and was not qualified to hold an opinion on, let alone an educated one. Just because an opinion is popular or tradition, does not make it right.

Having a recent opportunity to digest many volumes of classic political thought, I’ve been spending my time reading. The concept of Socialism is one that has been lost on me. “Socialism” has been widely used as an epithet for the direction of the current government. I have not been politically educated beyond personal experience and so my recent selection of reading material has been to inform myself on what socialism means and why it is or is not popular.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual.

-On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

Pretty close, I think. There are a few images I’m missing that would round this portfolio out, but at least by performing this exercise I know what to focus on. This is a portfolio of images in and around Clallam County and represent a wide range of activities and people. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for looking!

Second draft portfolio revision, all photos taken in and of Clallam County:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Thinking about photography, the future, life, work and art. One thing is certain and requires little thought, photography is a difficult craft. Becoming great will consume a lifetime of trying to achieve perfection.

As I look through photos I’ve taken over 4 years, it quickly becomes apparent where a formal education in photography would have helped. Becoming competent at the technical aspects of photography is relatively easy. Rule of thirds, see the light, and finally capture the “decisive moment”. That stuff was fairly easy for me to pick up on as they are considered “rules” and I am very good with rules.

I’ve spent too much time with the rules, they were too comfortable and generated satisfactory generic results. I have hundreds of decent photos that are properly exposed and composed. At the end of the day, most of them do not “say” anything about me or what I really hope to share. The problem is, I’m not even sure I know what I want to say.

Trying to put together a portfolio has been depressing and rewarding for me. I’ve tried several times in the past with horrible results. Past attempts were driven mostly by portfolio reviews with newspaper photographers and the idea that I wanted to be a newspaper photographer. Following a formula, I put together an especially disastrous book (portfolio) containing news, sports, portraits, stories and maybe a few random photos thrown in for good measure.

A few months later, I knew for certain that I did not want to be a newspaper photographer. Documentary photojournalist seemed to be the best working description of what I want to do. An ability to blend art and storytelling with photography, forget the rules. Kevin German has been my main inspiration for this. The rules are a great place to start, but at some point, to break away from the rest, rules must be ignored.

I don’t know what kind of photographer I am, but I know I want to open minds through visual storytelling. If I can expose a lie, a cliche, or a prejudice with a photograph than I will feel accomplishment.

I was scheduled to do another photo session with Stephanie this afternoon. I found out earlier that she was going to bring her “Little Red Riding Hood” costume for the session. Not feeling very excited about doing more portraits in my garage, I suggested we head to the forest. For the most appropriate location I chose a trail that runs behind Peninsula College.

The lighting setup for this: one EX550 with a light orange CTO gel bouncing off a white umbrella in the upper left outside the frame. The B&W background was done by desaturating green and yellow in lightroom, took me all of 3 seconds.

I keep staring at the same images over and over trying to make sense of what I keep capturing on film and file. The portfolio used to be a complete mystery to me. Now it’s a partial mystery. After a lot of reflection and thought about what kind of photographer I want to be, I took another crack at building a portfolio. This is the first take:

Port Angeles/Clallam County is the theme. Now that the theme or idea has been found it is much easier for me to figure out the holes and where I need to replace some images with stronger images. While I have some beautiful photos from around the world, they don’t really say much about me or the subject. This first round of portfolio selection represents in rough draft form what I’m trying to say. Clallam County is a unique place with all walks of life and I’d like to somehow represent that in photos.

I’m not much for rain, but I do appreciate what it can do for photos. Not many people photograph in the rain, but there are a number of unexpected and often beautiful photos that can be made when the wet stuff hits.

I happened to be kinda bumming in my office thinking about a lot of heavy stuff while the rain poured outside. The weather fit my mood. Suddenly a beam of light burst through my window. I jumped up, grabbed my camera and the 70-200 (the only canon lens I currently have in my posession) and ran outside. Just as I suspected a light rain was still falling as the sun burst through the clouds. The wet and back-lit leaves made for some great photos and cheered me up at the same time.

Meh. Stephanie was kind enough to allow me to photograph her while I practice lighting. I know what I want to make, but I’m thus far unable to make it. Part of it is gear – no softbox, no shoot-through umbrella’s and crappy strobes. The biggest part really is lack of experience. So, here I am working to fix that. Photography is undoubtedly hard work, especially being able to realize a new vision.

For what it’s worth, here’s Stephanie sharing a joke with my wife Lindsay.

I’m working a new look for the site, something a little more simple and direct. More changes will occur over the weekend and broken links will be fixed soon. The objective is to make it much easier for people to find my work. Thanks!

It’s been a while since I’ve busted out my flash and radio trigger, but I’ve been inspired lately so I asked my brother to pose for me.

The set up here is super simple, it was really dark out so I was shooting at 1/200 f/4 ISO 1000 and flash power at 1/64 with a mid-orange gel.  Flash is camera right and slightly forward of Jeff.