Paso a paso…
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” That aphorism is attributed to Lao Tze Tung, a Chinese philosopher and purported author of the Tao Te Ching and founder of Taoism. After a lifetime of experience I still reach back to the foundations of my character to assess my position on the path. My bachelor’s degree is in Religious Studies, principally eastern philosophy. It’s still my GPS as I seek a path toward becoming what the I Ching refers to as the “Superior Man.” In the west we might describe that person simply as a gentleman, or possibly as a Renaissance Man. For the record, I’ve made progress but have a long way to go.
I have been absent from these pages for too long. That’s because I haven’t done much work for hire as I recovered from two knee replacement surgeries. I haven’t done much dance photography in my recovery, either. Instead, I take my camera out with a single lens and do some “street photography,” mostly in coffee shops. It has made me realize that I want to do a lot more portraiture.
I recently entered a photography contest on portraiture at the Praxis Photo Gallery in Minneapolis. One of my entries was selected for a show that is open June 21 from 6-8 p.m., and runs through July 12. The photo they selected was one of my first portraits, made of a dancer at the gorgeous Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee. It was a tricky lighting situation and required some Photoshop skills to remove distractions long before artificial intelligence made such tasks simple.
More recently, I’ve been pestering an artist friend to let me make an environmental photograph of her. It’s a work in progress and I will write about it more when I complete the project. Meantime, I convinced two young entrepreneurs to let me photograph them in their coffee shop and music studio.
And I made some maternity photos of my daughter Elsa and her husband Dicke, who are expecting their first child in July.
More recently I have been contacted to do some headshots. Despite these activities, I cannot say I’ve been very productive. I have, however, been taking stock. That is to say, I’ve been learning.
I watch the light as it streams through a window and catches the outline of a face. I mark the shadows as they stretch across a wall, pointing to some activity in the frame. I notice the expressions of people as they talk and I eavesdrop on what they say. I notice how the smoke from Canadian wildfires colors the sky and softens the light, nearly eliminating shadows and casting a sepia tone across the frame. I am exploring the latest retouching tools in Capture One, the software I use to process my images. (Pro Tip: Capture One is simply an awesome program and gets better day by day.)
If you’re reading this, you’re either a relative, a friend or perhaps a secret admirer of my work. Thank you, sincerely, for taking the time. And if you want a portrait or have some other photographic needs, you know how to reach me.
