Photography as Past, Present and Future
Workshop Photography Training is the key to your future as a Photographer

The technical parts of photography moves forward at a dizzy pace. This means you must invest in yourself if you want to learn the different ways to craft and present your pictures as a work of art or as a commercial picture that people will buy. Even if your work of art pictures doesn't contribute to your overall profit, there is a part of you that was inspired to get into photography in the first place. Yes, you are an artist. If you never thought that, then why did you become a photographer? If you can't display one of your pictures on your living room wall, then maybe you are in the wrong career.

   Hopefully you will want to upgrade your skills and take one or more of my photography or web-site building workshop training courses.  The cost for my workshop(s) or classes are reasonable, however if you want to include a model shoot, especially a nude model photo shoot with a professional model, it will cost more, but if you ever wanted to do nude photography and want to craft some picture you can be proud of - than this is your opportunity to express yourself as an artist. 

    Some of the pictures in the slide show(click on left side picture) were made years ago when I lived in Maryland and New York City, some were made recently after I moved to the Florida Treasure Coast and explored the many areas to photograph in Fort Pierce, Vero beach and Port Saint Lucie. I guess you could call the slide show a body of work with a little hint as to where I want to take my pictures. The picture to the left was taken over 30 years ago. Originally, the picture was taken in a portraiture class at the Germaine School of Photography in New York City. The picture was taken on an 8X10 view camera using a sheet of black-and-white  film that had to be placed in a film holder. In those days if you wanted a sharp picture with little grain and great blow up possibilities this was the camera of choice. Obviously, things have changed and most young photographers have probably never heard of a view camera. I picked the picture to anchor my home page because the original photograph of the model represented my past and what I did with this picture many years later represented where I want to go with most of my pictures.

  If you have viewed the slide show, you can see I don't look at photographs as a fixed unchanging thing that you can put in a frame and showcase on your wall. I think in the future, at least for some pictures the frame will be replaced by an LED screen and pictures will be more fluid when displayed in order to enhance whatever the photographer is trying to communicate. Certainly, my views on photography aren't for everyone. Not every photographer would get rid of most of the picture and replace it with something else or make endless corrections of a picture until the right combination of subject, background and tonal values produce a picture far from the original raw file and closer to something I would put in the above video. 

   Over the last couple of years, I have experimented with HDR pictures where I have increased the contrast, saturation and detail to create pictures that jump out at you. I call this 'hyper realism' Unfortunately, I later learned that hyper realism is a painting discipline that emphasis most of the things that I am going for in my hyper realism type pictures. The big difference is that they paint from a photograph so that they can show the amount of detail needed for these types of paintings.

  There are many good photographers in the portrait photography business in Fort Pierce, Vero Beach and Port Saint Lucie. On the sites Photography related page I do mention some photography businesses that are worth taking a look at. But if you are looking for something a little different than a custom photograph might be just what you need. 

  I believe there is only one variation of a single photograph or picture that expresses everything I want to say about the photograph. I also believe there may be thousands of variations of a single photograph that will produce a pretty good photograph, and that I have yet to produce a photograph that shows everything about that photograph that needs to be expressed.

How does the above ideas translate into a photograph you might want to get a frame for and hang up on your wall? First check out the video below and read the comments to the left of the video. 

   

  First I have to admit I never liked the first picture in the video. This is the original picture and the rest of the pictures are variations of this picture. Yes the model is very attractive and in the prime of her life as a hot looking model, and yes I enjoyed the photo session with her - many of the photos I can't show on this site. But the photograph is boring and it looks like the model is probably thinking: Gee that guy taking my pictures is really old, I hope he will last till the end of my session or I hope they are serving low fat pizzas during lunch. The second picture in the slide show tries to show the different things I can do to enhance a picture. The most obvious is the change in hair color, eyes and the subtle changes in color and shape of the mouth. In the second picture her mouth looks a little more sultry. I'm sure she is probably thinking: Damn that photographer is really hot, I wonder what he is doing later tonight. That's my fantasy and I am sticking with it. I also changed the background a little bit and got rid of the light switch. I put a halo effect around the model to force the viewer's eyes to zoom in the model. I like the second picture better but depending on the use for the picture either picture is okay. The rest of the slide show, shows some(endless possibilities) of the many variations you can create from a single picture.

  And yes, adding a little music from Beethoven's Symphony No.9 adds a little snap to a dull slide show of a so-so picture. If you want to see the real reason why I started to work on this photograph click on the Model Photographer page and look for a picture that looks similar but is completely different.

  I am not your usual person running a business in that I don't expect to make a lot of money from photography. Over time if I get more business my prices will go up in order to do less business. The important point is I need to spend a fair amount of time developing each picture. It is almost like writing a novel in that I have to keep revising until I get the type of picture I want. The best pictures I make show a relationship between the portrait subject and the environment that complements and perhaps hints something about the subject. I try my best to like the people I take pictures of. Every photograph usually shows some prejudices of the photographer. I personally only want good things to highlight in my photographs.

  I certainly don't have a large impression studio and I would love to have an assistant to help with the lights and setting up the picture but I don't. I would love to have a make up artist and a hair stylist but if I did who could afford the pictures. I do use several photo editing and enhancement software's that improves the appearance of my portrait subjects.  My photographs are heavily manipulated and could be better called a collage masquerading as a photograph. 

  I believe real beauty resides on the inside of a person. The more I see it in my portrait subjects the more I will use any means possible to show it on the outside. 

   Although I may be open to some wedding or commercial photography, I am mostly interested in making some interesting, some would say quirky pictures as a portrait photographer. For a full explanation of the types of portraits I want to make please check out our special 'Photography Offerings' section.