Prints stand the test of time

                         1994                                                                 1931

The photography we’re posting on digital media has a shelf life of about ten minutes. We need to think beyond Facebook, Instagram, Flicker etc.

Do yourself one very important favor. When you capture that great picture of your spouse, kids or pets put the picture in a folder called to be printed. Take your disk or what ever to a lab and have some prints made. Photographic prints stand the test of time.  Storing pictures on your phone will fail you someday.

You don’t want to look back 20 years from now and say I can’t remember what my kids looked like on their first day of school. Do it for yourself and for your family.

The pictures I’m posting are of my son (left) when he was 13. It was 1994. It’s shot on film and I have a similar print displayed in our home. The picture to the right is of my father when he was 10 years old.  It was 1931

Bonkers with a cell phone

Hipstamatic / Winkelman, AZ.

Cell phone photography has gone bonkers. Image quality has risen to a point where the work looks great. You don't even need to hold the camera to your face or close one eye. When people say everyone is a photographer now. It's so true. What defines a photographer these days. It's all over the place. Imagine being a fine art photographer who makes a living selling images. Good luck! Just look at Instagram. Quality photography is being produced by 10's of thousands of people all over the world.

Beyond my commercial work, this type of photography is still a self indulging practice for me. I can't live my life through how many "likes" I receive. It has to be fun for me or why do it at all.

I'm still shooting film but not as much.

View Camera Portrait

Jason 1994

1994, 13 years old and life's a bitch. Budding testosterone and way to many important decisions to be made.  He's got that leadership eye and whit.  He's done quite well for himself.  Grew up, got married and has a terrific career in the semiconductor industry.

The image was made with a Deardorff 8 X 10 view camera using a 360mm Rodenstock lens. The film is Tmax 100 and it was developed by hand in a rotatory drum using Tmax RS developer.

Camping Portraits

Lorie

Lori and I,  Photo by Toru

Donna and Toru

Toru

Donna

These pictures are from a recent overnight camping trip to the Mogollon Rim in AZ. 

The pictures are made with a Polaroid camera and film made by Fuji film.  The color is FP-100c and the black and white is FP-100b.  These are the pull apart film’s like the old by gone Polaroids.  The sun light was intense and contrasty so for fill light I used a Canon 580 EXII flash and a small beauty dish.

This was an exercise for me not to over manage. The conversation prior to making the pictures was use the coffee pot or cup as your prop and beyond that I will not micro manage the portraits.  I wanted Toru, Donna, Lorie and I to just be.  You don’t have to smile or look into the camera.  Just be yourself and do what every you want.  This is the result.

Catherine Dec. 2011.

I recently did a Photoshop tutorial and decided this would be a great image to work on while discovering new ways of doing things.  I realize this is a departure from my purist photography bradarmstrongphotography.com and more on the digital art side. I think creative applications are worthy of learning in spite of what people might think of it.   It may not be for everyone but as far as I am concerned it's all about discovery at my finger tips.

Photoshop is an incredible tool and I know this type of image is perceived as fake or trendy. It's taken me a long time to realize I don't do this to make other people happy.  Photography is a self indulging creative activity that is very personal.
So go for it.  If people like it, great.  If they don't, learn from it and move on. 

If you read my blog you'll know I'm all about learning and constantly pushing myself to learn new things. I'll say it again, I need to evolve and grow creativley.  If I'm satisfied with a particular techneque I fear I will become formulaic, predictable and boring.  I may be that already but at least I'm trying to be better everyday I go out the door.

Thanks for looking and supporting my blog.  Comments are always welcome.

It was our 33rd wedding anniversary last Saturday.  Lorie and I decided to get out of the Phoenix heat (107 degrees) and head North to the mountains two hours away.  We brought our dog Kona and we had a relaxing day under the pine trees near Flagstaff.  

We eventually ended up on Schnebly Hill Road.  We got there by way of interstate 17 and eventually descended into Sedona from the North.   It’s a rough 13 mile road that is pretty smooth until you descend into Sedona.  From the Schnebly Vista Point you need a high clearance vehicle to make the final descent into Sedona.  You would bottom out if you drive it in a car.  The road is no longer maintained and is heavily traveled by Jeep tours and other four wheel drive recreational vehicles.  It’s a rough road these days no doubt.

I took these pictures with a Polaroid SE600 camera.  It’s a big camera but it’s fun to get instant pictures.  The Polaroids are 3.5 by 4.5 inches.  To get the pictures posted onto the Transformations Blog I scanned them with an Epson Perfection V750 Pro flatbed scanner. 

The Process

Being a photographer means using your equipment regularly.  You have to stay in shape physically and creatively.  Know your equipment.  Learn the menus backwards and forwards.  The goal is to be in control of your gear and not the other way around.  Practice makes better!


These portraits are from a practice session with my assistant Zak.  Both are one light set-ups.  The guitar portrait is made with a large umbrella while the biker portrait is with a silver reflector with a 25 degree spot grid attached.  In both portraits the f stops were wide open creating a shallow depth of field.  Balancing studio strobe with ambient can be tricky at times but in natural light this situation was ideal.  Both shots have a two to one lighting ratio meaning the subject is twice as bright as the background.  Both shots are ISO 100 using an 85 millimeter lens.  The biker shot 160 @ f 2.5 and the guitar shot is f 2.2.
Enjoy and have fun.