4x5

4x5 is the size of the film used in a 4x5 view camera. I was required to buy one when I attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. I had never used a camera like this before. This is the old fashioned type camera where the photographer standing beneath a dark cloth to look through the ground glass. It is a very disconcerting because the image is upside down and that took some getting used to. The good things about the camera is that it produces a very large negative from which a very sharp print can be printed. Another thing is that the camera allows for correction of distortion when photographing buildings. The film is held in film holders which hold 2 sheets of film, one on each side. It is also very heavy and requires a sturdy tripod. Also to focus it is best to use a loupe for magnification. Also a shutter release cable is needed. Back then I also used a manual light meter. You have to remember this was back in 1981 when things were still done manually. I also had to learn to develop the film. I could develop my own black and white film while the color film was sent to the photo lab for processing. I developed a lot of film during my time at Brooks. I used a black and white film called Tri-X most of the time but I also shot color negative and color transparency. Sometime the assignment called for both black and white and color and color transparency. I haven't used the camera in a long time now but I still have and there are times when I think about bringing it out and taking a few photos. Maybe I will.

Special Effects

This is an example of the special effects that you can do in Photoshop (Solarization and Posterization).

My photography equipment

Since I am shooting digitally now I only use my Fuji S2 camera. The lens I normally use with it is a Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm f 3.5-4.5G ED lens. I have a 2 Gb compact flash card. I have another Fuji S2 camera in case my primary camera stops working. On that camera I have a Nikkor 28-105 mm 3.5-4.5 D lens. The 18-70 is a DX lens and the 28-105 is not. I use White Lightning for my strobes and a Vivitar 283 flash with a Quantum Turbo battery pack. I still have my Nikon film cameras and Nikon lenses but I haven't used them in a long time.

Polly's Chapel, Bandera County, Texas

This is the chapel that my great-great-grandfather built. His name was Jose Policarpio Rodriguez and he lived from January 26, 1829 to March 25, 1914. He was a Hispanic Methodist minister.

Why I started a photography blog

I have been a photographer for a long time. It is my way of being creative. I started this blog to share with the others the joy I have in taking photos. I started taking photos when my brother who was in Hawaii while I was stationed at Pearl Harbor let me borrow his Nikon camera. I discovered that I could take good photos. Better than most people. I took a few classes and eventually attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. In those days we still used film and had to process and print our own photos by developing the film and printing the photos using chemicals. Nowadays people just point and shoot and print out their digital photos with their home printer. Anyway, it is still about capturing an image. So here I am still taking photos but just doing it differently.