A few words about my photography ...
Most of the photos in the galleries were taken with a Nikon D800 using Nikkor AF-S 24-120 and AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4G lenses; the October 2011 photos were taken with a Sony A55. Raw digital files were processed and adjusted in DXO OpticsPro. The 1972 photos of India and Nepal were taken with Nikon SLRs using Kodachrome and Ektachrome; the slides were scanned on a Canon CanoScan 8800F using Silverfast software. Final adjustments were done in Aperture.
Photography has been a life-long passion. I started taking photos as a teenager in the late 1950s using black and white film that I developed and printed in my own darkroom. In the early 1960s I began taking 35mm color slides and now have a library of over 8,000 slides. I used a Yashica 35mm SLR during the early 1960s and then several Nikon SLRs starting in the late ‘60s.
My early experience in the darkroom was invaluable as I learned to “create photographs” rather than “ take snapshots” - getting the blacks black, the whites white, with a correct tonal range, and to understand that the content of a good photograph is as much about shapes and tones and “balance” as about a good representation of the nominal subject of the photo (a scene, a person, an event, etc.).
Despite the introduction of digital cameras in the 90s, I continued using film, though I experimented with several low cost digital cameras and more recently with a Sony A55. I was very happy taking photos using Kodachrome and told myself that I would fully switch to digital when they started approaching the clarity and detail of Kodachrome. When Kodak discontinued Kodachrome in 2009, I had to start thinking seriously about getting an advanced digital camera. Well, I’m nothing if not deliberate in my decision making, and in early 2012 finally took the plunge and purchased a Nikon D800 digital camera (with a 36mp full-frame [FX] sensor), a true technological marvel and absolutely fantastic camera.
Switching to digital required changes in how I took photos as well as how I “developed” them. It's taken awhile, but I’ve become something of an expert in processing and adjusting digital photos. I currently use DXO OpticsPro to convert Raw files and do some initial processing, and then Aperture to do final processing and cataloging of the photos.
I’ve been having a tremendous amount of fun taking and processing digital photos, and hope that you enjoy viewing the samples that I’ve placed on this website.
Thanks for visiting.
© Jon Showstack Photography