National Parks Magazine.

So, a pretty groovy thing happened recently. The NPCA magazine, National Parks, won an award from Folio. Turns out it was the issue in which my story about wounded veterans appeared. The Winter 2009 issue.

Acclaimed conservation photographer Ian Shive has the issue's cover story about the search-and-rescue team in Denali National Park and Reserve. There are also articles about wild flowers, about wildlife surviving the desert heat, and about Dry Tortugas N.P.

Amy Marquis, assistant editor and writer for the magazine, worked tirelessly with me on the veterans story (keeping me in line, always steering in the right direction!) in addition to writing it. She also penned a history of the White House for that same issue.

Anyway, this is just my way of expressing my deep appreciation and gratitude to NPCA and National Parks magazine for all they do for our National Parks system, and for giving me the opportunity to briefly take part. Quite an honor.

Equally as important, though, was the privilege of getting to know and photograph the folks at Team River Runner and the many vets they regularly assist. An inspiring bunch, all!

Cheers.

Need A 2010 Calendar?

Then go HERE and pick one up.

Great photography, good cause!

Check out the video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXpqNW1Ur8o

And the website: http://www.jonathankrist.org/

Chiaroscuro

A goodly amount of contrast, semi-interesting shapes, a little life and texture; photographs are found... even at a Starbucks patio.

24 Months!

On behalf of the entire staff here at Kircher's Conceit I'd like to take a brief moment to thank everyone who stopped by this past year... all three of you!

Here's to the next 365 days, may they be productive and enlightening.

Cheers.

My only friend... the End.

This is from an outing earlier this year. I was shooting an assignment for Maryland Life and this just sort of presented itself. I think I can hear The End by The Doors somewhere in the background.

FotoWeek DC 2009

Big photography festival all week folks. All over town. Go check it out!

At a gallery called the Fight Club in NW, near the Convention Center, I attended a gallery showing of David Alan Harvey's work from his Spanish diaspora series. He also featured work by three other photographers... Chris Bickford, Michael Loyd Young and A.J. Wilhelm. Impressive work all.

I asked David to pose with this iconic image. It is one of the first photographs of his I can remember seeing and thinking, Man, that's a great shot. I'd like to do that! I started to think about who the artist was. What was he thinking? How did he achieve this or that? What were some of the other things he did? I was fifteen at the time, I think, and from then on I made a point of going through the National Geographic contents page looking for photographers' names, irregardless of the story.

And today? Well, here's a link-->(click here) to a web page I created of the other evening. Enjoy.

Thanks David. Good time.

Back In The Day...

Before our 35mm SLR film cameras evolved into the digital wonders they are today, a photographer who wanted a different "look" to his/her images was, for the most part, left the option of using different films. Negatives. Transparencies. B&W. Color. Kodachrome. Ektachrome. Velvia. Provia. Kodacolor. Fujicolor. Agfa. Ilford...

Depending on the results you desired--more contrast, less contrast, warmer tones, cooler tones--you needed to decide before hand which film or films you'd bring along. For instance, Velvia with its deep, rich blacks and vivid colors and strong contrast looks amazing on an overcast day in Autumn when the trees are peaking. But might not work quite as well for a nice soft portrait of the family. Several rolls of film designed for portraits and another designed for landscapes at the very least would be in the bag.

Today, all those emulsions are in the camera! Well, more accurately, they're in the computer. But the RAW information gathered on the CCD of your camera and written onto the CF or SD card therein provides the information needed for the computer program to make the best image, to realize the final photograph you envisioned.

When I saw this fellow walking along the rocks, in my mind's eye I saw a silhouette with dramatic clouds as backdrop. But as you can see in the first photo the tone is rather soft, and the silhouette weak.

It took a little fiddling in Nikon Capture NX to get the image I really wanted. (below)

It went from being a somewhat low-contrast Kodacolor print to a strong contrast Velvia slide. At least for me it did. What do you think?