A quick note about our Wildlife photography;
We DO NOT alter wildlife images in any way shape or form. The only post-processing done is dust spot removal, a slight sharpening, and brightening of the colors to correct the loss of detail and saturation that occurs when photons are converted to pixels by a computer and the occasional conversion to monochrome.
How I started chasing light…
Hello! I’m Chris and I’ve been making clicks for several years now. Black River Photography is my attempt to make some money with a passion of mine, and help some other photographers find their way. I had a great deal of help learning this craft over the years and hope to repay that kindness and pass what I continue to learn forward.
I started down the image-making road when I was about fifteen or sixteen. Like many photogs, I saw an image that really caught my attention and I suddenly had to know all about it. I don’t remember what the image was to be honest, though it was the cover of a major magazine. I of course bought said magazine and read the article, admired the images, and then took a look at the credits. It was the work of Joe Mcnally. That more or less opened my eyes to the world of photography, and so I bought a few photo magazines and started looking at cameras. I started shooting a 35mm point and shoot and quickly found its limitations, so I hunted around looking for an old Pentax we used to have. No such luck…then my parents bought me my first camera for Christmas that year… a Minolta Maxxum 5.
Ugly little bugger, isn’t it? To say I shot some film with that would be a great understatement. I shot 35mm color and monochrome negative film, mostly because I didn’t know better, but also to get affordable prints of every frame so I could study and learn. I took notes on nearly every frame, certainly on every roll so when I looked back at the printed image, I could see what my changes did. Just as I was starting to learn I finally hit my head against the proverbial wall hard enough to knock myself out. I suddenly was frustrated time and again that what I saw in the viewfinder wasn’t what I got on film. I hit the books and magazines and started to learn about light quality and exposure. Here I almost gave up photography. There was a very well-written article in a magazine with a photo just like the one I was trying to get. The photographer explained in great detail how he set up his high-end camera, on his top-of-the-line tripod with a cable release and a fast lens with a split grad, and 2 stop neutral density filter with a polarizer… I think you get the idea. Well not only did I not how what half of that was I just couldn’t afford any of it. So, I hung my head and put that ugly little camera aside.
Some weeks later I saw a photo of a wading bird on the cover of a magazine, and ever so slowly walked up and took a look at it. Skim read the article and bought the mag. When I got home from work, I put up my feet and dove into the magazine. This photographer wrote a very entertaining article that flew in the face of the cost of photography. He said that if you have a camera shoot! What a damn strange notion! The article explained how the cover shot was taken with a short lens, handheld, with no special tricks. I didn’t have the fast glass and top-end body, but I didn’t need it to get that shot so the old Minolta got dusted off. The photographer was Moose Peterson. Moose remains my favorite photographer, and though I have yet to meet him he has taught me a great deal about this craft from his fantastic website full of free knowledge for anyone who wants it.
Now I was back into photography full time when I wasn’t working. After about two weeks I went and shot a sunset, I had been brushing up on my skills and really wanted to try this out. Found a little bridge and set up for the evening. I shot until I knew I couldn’t possibly get anything (still no tripod), but this time I knew what I was after, a silhouette of the bridge against the sunset. It is a long way from an award-winning photo… but I got exactly what I wanted… I was hooked.
I would love to tell you this is the part I started winning photo contests or started making a ton of money, but that’s far from the case. I did, however, work hard on my craft and got to a point I hope anyone with the heart to take their cameras out of automatic mode gets to experience; I suddenly saw pictures in magazines and books, in ads and on billboards, that wasn’t as good as my work. I knew I was a photographer. I wasn’t a big-time pro or a master at it, but I knew that when I pressed the shutter release, I wasn’t guessing anymore, I wasn’t just clicking, but trying to tell a story with a picture…and that is what photography is.
So, to wrap up this little story I’m trying to take that next step farther into the light and pursue something of a career in this field. I started my own tiny little company and have a direction I want to go in. My path isn’t very conventional but I’m told by the old pros (both in photography and in life) to stay on the course I’ve chosen because I chose it, if for no other reason.
Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you out with a camera in hand and a mind ready to explore.