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My love of photography began
when I was a teenager.
Photography was a
hobby of my entire family. Some of my family members even invented
photography equipment. I was always around cameras.
My interest
actually began in high school. I had a very "short" career on the
football team that ended in a knee injury. I still wanted to be on the
field "close to the action", and I got permission from the coach to
take pictures from the sidelines. It didn't take long to learn it was
safer taking pictures than being the smallest player on the team. One
of my team members went on to play for the NY Giants, so that gives
you an idea of what I was dealing with.
Anyway, I lived
across the river from New York City and enjoyed hopping on the train
and taking pictures all over the city on weekends. I would create my
images, make proof sheets and show them to a teacher who also liked
photography as a hobby. He taught me the fundamentals of composition,
lines, space, contrast etc.
My hobby turned
into a career, but I always love to pick up my camera and wander
around creating "Art". I don't really have any "style" I can describe
to you. I have ideas about what I don't want in my pictures. When I
look through the lens, if I don't like what I see I don't capture it.
My images are usually one image captured of any scene. I don't shoot
100 pictures then look for a good one.
I don't use any
special effects on my images except a little "grain" and maybe a few
edge effects to create a look of painted or sketched art. I don't get
caught up in the "fad effects" created in Photoshop. Photoshop
does allow me to "cheat" a little and remove stray objects, that would
have caused me to pass on a beautiful image because of the retouching
required in the past with film. But for the most part, what you see...
is what I see... when I click the shutter.
With the
advances in digital cameras, some of the art is being lost to the
computer. I teach professional photographers how to create better
portraits and wedding images. I have coined a term I think I can apply
here....
"Create in the
camera, not in the Computer"
A mistake, or
misunderstanding about creating these images, is that you can simply
capture a "huge" scene, then crop it to any "look" later in Photoshop.
It doesn't work that way. When you capture a large scene, you camera's
lens records the depth of field and angles differently than if you
create it in the camera exactly as you see it through the viewfinder.
While it does take more skill to do this, it makes a difference in the
final outcome, and hopefully you enjoy viewing my images for that
reason.
Every object in
front of the camera's lens, contributes to what will be part of the
final composition. Many time a person be it a pro or hobbyist, will
show me a picture they created and ask me what I think, or how can
they improve it, etc. I try and explain, they can't simply re-crop
that image and create a good result. There were other parts of the
"landscape" available when they created that image, and I need to see
it all to know what might have been included, or excluded, to create
an interesting composition.
Thank you for
visiting,
Bob Kahn |
