I like to fiddle with the buttons and wheels on both of my cameras. I realize that this sounds pretty old-timey. But sometimes when I push those buttons and spin those wheels, the photo I capture turns out to be interesting. Each photo tells a story.
Other photographers who see me with my one older camera look at it and say, “What the heck is that?”
“It’s a camera,” I say. Then I show them. Soon, they become disinterested because it’s not fancy like the one they’re using, or what they see “pros” using. When I tell them that this older camera I’m still using is 10-years-old, I can almost hear them thinking, “Heck, that’s old technology. His photos can’t be any good.”
The voice in my head says, I’ll just let the work speak for itself. And that’s what I’m doing here. So thanks for stopping by my site and looking at a few pictures. Maybe you’ll even post a comment or two!
I mean it, I appreciate that you took a few minutes to read and look around. I heard a well-known photographer who uses every social media tool out there once say in a podcast that “attention is the new currency” on the Internet. If that’s true, then you just spent some of your hard-earned time on this site. I hope you found a good return on your investment, and that you’ll stop by again some time.
[JD]
Biographical info
When I was a kid, I was fascinated by photography, but I never really had a camera of my own. We had the family camera, which only came out at birthdays or holidays and the occasional trip.
It wasn’t until I was out of college, working at the Cascade Pioneer-Advertiser, that I became fully exposed to the art and craft of photography. The paper’s owner / editor at the time was a photobug, a serious one. At a small weekly newspaper, we all shared photography responsibilities. We shot with fully-manual Hasselblads, medium-format cameras. No autofocus, no in-camera metering. We shot it all and wrote it all. News, features, sports. All b&w film. We developed our own film, dodged and burned our own prints in the darkroom.
At the next paper where I worked, the N’West Iowa Review, the staff was larger. I shot less, but learned more. The true pro photographers whom I worked with on assignments were fantastic.
What I know now, more than 20 years later, is that this foundation as a journalist provided me with an understanding of exposure, aperture, shutter speed, light, composition and most importantly, how to see deeper–to the story behind the photo.
Going digital more than 10 years ago was significant. While I shoot carefully, I shoot a lot. My day job wouldn’t have allowed me to learn and explore this art without going broke in the process. Then, for several years I produced virtual tours as a freelancer. I continued to learn, and I keep learning even now, even as a pro.
Lately, I’ve taken the plunge into sharing / publishing, and selling or licensing my work.
I stress composition, texture and light. These elements are particularly important in still-life pieces and urban landscapes. When working on portraits, I pay particular attention to composition and timing. My subjects possess a certain everyday anonymity, which offers the viewer an opportunity to interpret the story behind the scene in whatever manner he/she chooses.
Where am I headed next with my art? I’m chasing the light, the next shot, the next story.
-Jim Duncan