November 25, 2007

I've been called "freakishly tall" but the truth is I'm not. What I do is take photographs sometimes in a studio, sometimes at an event and sometimes when I'm just walking down the street. I decided to start this site as an incentive to shoot, and to share what I've been shooting.

I've been exploring photography since my early teens. I started exploring the darkroom when I was in Air Cadets and shooting with an old waist level reflex viewfinder type camera. When you took a picture you looked down into the camera from above and the image shown in the viewfinder was upside down.

Later in the 80's I was using a classic 35mm Pentax K1000 SLR, a manual camera that had almost no electronics inside. Ok, there was a simple light meter but that was all there was. If the battery died on that light meter you could still use the camera. One of the drawbacks to the SLR of course is the weight. I found in time I just wasn't carrying the gear around and in the 90's I stopped shooting.

Digital photography has brought the photographer out of me again. With digital you have so many different gear options and I use them all. I use my cell phone camera as a gritty street camera for those grab shots of everyday life. I have a small point and shoot I can easily carry around to capture found beauty. When I know what I'm going for I have my digital SLRs. One of the most interesting cameras I have right now is a Canon Rebel that has been modified for infrared photography. You can check out the results from this camera under the archive topic "infrared".

When I started this site, I had so many photos and was taking so many I had no concerns that I'd ever run out. But I quickly found I wanted to be more unique, or at least not keep repeating the same techniques year after year. So last year I decided to explore creativity in photography and I took a couple of courses at SPAO (School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa). This year I've become a member of the RA Photo Club and I've been enjoying the competitions. But most importantly I've been hanging out with club members after the meeting and debating photography.

If you need to contact me directly send email to earlcw_@hotmail.com just remove the underscore from the email address.

Best Wishes
Charles Earl