I’m Ryan. I live in Cincinnati Ohio and I’m married to a beautiful woman named Allison. We have a little girl, Ava, who is about to turn 3 years old and we are expecting a new baby within the next couple of weeks. I am a full time pastor on staff with Vineyard Westside Church.
How did you become interested in photography?
I got into photography right alongside my dad. He was always interested in it, but was never able to have a decent camera because we didn’t have the money. One day when I was about 13 or 14, we found a Pentax K1000 with a 50mm lens at a flea market that was labeled $2. The guy told us it was broken and that he didn’t know what was wrong with it. We opened up the back and someone had shoved their finger through the shutter blades. Less than $20 fixed the camera for us and we started experimenting with exposures. We would take day trips around town and shoot anything and everything. Wal-mart processed the film and we provided the creativity. Soon, I would be borrowing that old K1000 and shooting photos at school and with my friends. I was hooked.
What was the first photograph that you remember making an impression on you?
I remember being confused by the images that Man Ray was able to create and I wanted to know more about how to do something like that. This is what caused me to understand that my Wal-mart, 1-hour photo prints weren’t quite in the same realm as other photography.
What were the early steps you took, to grow as a photographer? Are you a self taught photographer or did you have a mentor that showed you the ropes?
I am easily obsessed with things. I’ve always said that if I’m going to be a bear, then I’m going to be a grizzly bear. I go for things all the way. Once the photography bug had bitten me, I applied for a job at a local camera shop and got it when I was just turning sixteen. I would peruse all the cameras and figure out thier ins and outs and what made them unique. During the time I wasn’t waiting on customers, I spent all my time reading photography magazines and books. I love to teach, and to do so I have to be a learner first. I would learn as much as I could about a camera and then I would sell it to people. This gave me a pretty intimate knowledge with the camera equipment itself and once I knew how to do things with a camera from a technical standpoint…I was then able to let the creativity take over.
What sort of equipment do you use? Which is most important or vital? Any favorite lenses? Anything you don’t have that you would like to use?
I’ve used camera equipment from all over the map. Canon, Pentax, Nikon, Mamiya, Bronica, etc.. For now, I am a Nikon guy. Of all the camera equipment, Nikon always seems to make the most sense to me as far as usability goes. I’m currently shooting a Nikon D90 with a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 (which I love), Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye, and Tamron 17-50 f/2.8. As you can see…I’m not picky when it comes to names. I just want good quality stuff and I know that many lenses are crap even when they say Nikon or Canon on them. It all depends on each particular lens. I’m looking to get a 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 105mm f/2.8 Micro, both from Nikon.
How do you make your subjects feel relaxed in front of the camera?
I like making people feel comfortable anyways, and as a pastor I’m always working on getting people to let down their gaurd. Usually I try to give people a good amount of personal space and start shooting with the camera at my chest level rather than in front of my face. The real key is shooting something, and then showing the person that you’ve captured them well. This will allow you to shoot with thier confidence.
How do you know when a photo, of yours, is really good?
When I find myself itching to show it to people or blog about it.
Do you ever find yourself in a “photo funk”, and, if so, how do you get out of it?
To be honest, I was in a photo funk for about 3 years where I hardly shot any images at all. I had got to a point where I had ten thousand dollars in photo equipment, and I would shoot images that I loved, and then I would see a better version of the image I had taken on the next month’s photo magazine. It drove me crazy! I started thinking that there was nothing I could “bring” to photography as a whole, so I might as well not even try. Well, once my wife had my little girl…I just couldn’t use the argument anymore. I started shooting photos again, and re-building my collection of equipment after I’d sold everything off.
Best remedy for a photo funk is to be a part of a life worth photographing.
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Put on your seatbelt, as I tell you how I discovered Ryan. A long time ago (last year), my wife found this rockin’ blog called, The Pioneer Woman. It covers cooking, photography, homeschooling, and gardening. The author, Ree, invites specialists in their field to contribute, every so often. This dude named “Pastor Ryan” had contributed a bunch of sweet cooking stuff. I poked around and found his own blog, discovering that he’s a real pastor, a photographer, and clearly in love with his wife. I liked him.
Fast forward to today. Ryan’s photography inspires me, no two ways about it. There are many photogs out there that are really good, but don’t inspire me to do more myself. Ryan’s work is really great, but also in the areas that I find desireable. I wanted to shoot what he was shooting. In fact, this past mother’s day, I copied one of his ideas for a gift to my mother and mother-in-law.
My name is Bill Wadman, I’m a portrait photographer in NYC. Most of the time I’m shooting editorial portraits for magazines like TIME and BusinessWeek with some advertising thrown in for good measure. In 2007 I completed a project at 365portraits.com which got a good amount of attention. That said, I really only picked up a camera about 5 years ago, my education is in music of all things.
How did you become interested in photography?
Honestly? I’m not sure. I used to play with my dad’s Canon AE-1 when I was a kid, but really it began with my desire to do something new. I tend to get bored a lot, so I like to try things I’ve never done before. So picked up a camera and got hooked.
What was the first photograph that you remember making an impression on you?
Actually, I have no good answer for this one.
What were the early steps you took, to grow as a photographer? Are you a self taught photographer or did you have a mentor that showed you the ropes?
I’m completely self taught, figuring out how to do it is where most of the fun for me. I certainly read articles and interviews on the web along with occasional books, but most of it is experimentation. It was interesting getting my 4×5 going the first day. “oops, blew that sheet of polaroid, another five bucks down the drain!”
What sort of equipment do you use? Which is most important or vital? Any favorite lenses? Anything you don’t have that you would like to use?
Right now I do most of my work with a canon 5DII. 28/1.8, 35/1.4, 50/1.2, and 85/1.2 lenses. I sold all my L zooms last year in deference to primes, but kept the 24-70L just in case.
Besides the digital canon, I’ve got a Leica M4, Hasselblad 500c/m, and a Cambo 4×5, but those are relegated to special circumstances nowadays. Film is too expensive and time consuming for me.
As far as lights go, I’ve got a couple of speedlights and a few Alien Bees, and a Profoto AcuteB for on site shoots when a Speedlight just won’t do.
Most of the time though, if I have my 5D with the 28 and 50mm lenses (love that 28mm), and a diffuser/reflector, I’m happy. I like to use available light or incredibly simple light setups whenever I can. Also, people often yell at me for using wide-angle lenses for portraits, but it works for me. I like having some of their environment in there as well.
As for toys I’d like to have, I wouldn’t mind taking a nice medium format back if someone wanted to buy me a P65. I think I’ll wait until they’re full frame 6×6 though. But honestly at this point, if my photographs don’t look the way I want, it’s my fault at this point, not my gear’s.
Would you give a brief walk through your work flow?
Well first comes the shooting. I’m not the guy who has to get exposure perfect in camera. In fact with the small dynamic range of these sensors, I don’t know that there is such a thing as perfect exposure, you’re almost always losing the highlights or the shadows. In any case, I shoot RAW and if I’m within half of a stop from where I should be, I’m usually ok.
I consider shooting to be gathering raw footage for later editing, so I tend to worry more about the subject than the camera. Sometimes to my detriment.
When I get home I copy everything over to a raid 1 array. A folder for each shoot inside a folder for each subject, just to keep it straight. Then I import them from the disk into Lightroom, convert to DNG, rename and sort.
I go through a multiple-step process. The ones worth anything get 1 star, then I go through those and the best get two stars, then I go through those until I end up with the 5 or 6 I want to retouch. WB and exposure and fill light etc are done in lightroom, then I export a 16bit PSD into Photoshop and add lots of masked curves to make the image look like something. When I’m done I backup the project to an external drive and export a full-res jpg which I upload to jungle disk as a last ditch backup in case my house gets bombed.
How do you decide on locations & subjects? Where is your favorite location to take pictures?
Most of the time, I don’t get much choice on the setting, or I have to do the best with what I’m handed. The backgrounds in many of my pictures are not that interesting until after I process them. This is something I have to work on though, I’ve got a few letter size pieces of paper with reminders on them stuck to my wall above my monitor and one of them says, “Find & use better backgrounds”.
There are many schools of thought on this though. Some people like Greenfield-Sanders or Avedon for example, wanted the background to be nothing or next to nothing with the subject the focus of attention. There are other photographers who go to the other extreme and have a well styled person sitting in a gorgeous setting with a blank look on their face. Personally I’m somewhere in between. I think I tend to lean towards the minimalists but I’m also envious of the beautiful settings, so I think my goal is to merge the two going forward.
Do you rely on lighting (natural, or artificial)?
In the past I used almost all available light. It was like a puzzle to find a way to make it work. Lately I’ve been using more strobes, mostly for control. But they do add time and complexity to shoots, so it’s a tradeoff.
In general, during a session, how many pics would you say you take to find “the right one”?
Anywhere from 2 to 500. On average though I can get what I need in 125 or so, that’s usually where the numbers come out. I had two shoots the other day though that couldn’t have been more different. First shoot I shot 450 images and got about 2 pics I was at all happy with. That night I did a studio shoot where I ended up with 200 images, 40 of which were better than the best of the afternoon shoot. There are a lot of variables.
How do you make your subjects feel relaxed in front of the camera?
I talk to them. I’ll do research before I meet them if they’re known. Helps to break the ice. Usually I’m honestly interested. If it works, the subject almost forgets what’s going on and let’s down their guard. Sometimes it takes a while, an hour or more, but there’s eventually a moment where the whole thing shifts and the scale tilts in my favor. It’s a great moment.
How do you know when a photo, of yours, is really good?
When it looks like something better than the pictures that I usually take. In many ways I’m my own hardest critic. I always want each shoot to lead to better and better images, but that’s not always possible, and then I beat myself up over it. It’s more a feeling than anything else. When stuff really clicking I get buzzed. Usually that happens when I’m shooting and the lighting or framing or pose all come together, I get this “ooo, ooo, ooo” feeling. Sometimes I even say that out loud.
Usually when that happens though, it’s because it’s both a pretty photograph as well as telling about the subject. Like I said, a pretty picture with a dead looking subject is pretty boring to me.
How would you describe your style?
I usually say that I take deliberate environmental portraits. When I’m at my best, I want my images to look like paintings. Other than that, I have a hard time putting words to it.
Do you ever find yourself in a “photo funk”, and, if so, how do you get out of it?
All the time. Hell, I’m in one now. Usually the only way out is to keep shooting until I come up with something new that excites me. Idle hands are my shackles, I’ve got to keep moving. Unfortunately the funk usually comes with a depression that makes you uninterested in shooting at all. It’s a bad cycle to get into and hard to get out. Some people look at other people’s work to get inspired. It’s funny, but I tend to only get inspired by either super famous people or dead photographers. I’ll pick up a Cartier-Bresson book and be inspired by it, but some kid in Tokyo that’s taking great stuff and posting it on his website usually just makes me feel like I suck. So sometimes surfing other people’s work for inspiration can backfire on you.
How do you market yourself? Do you advertise? If so where? How important is an awesome website for your business?
I have an agent now, but in the past I’ve used some of the services like adbase and photoserve. Honestly though I’ve gotten the most work from word of mouth and networking. I guess my 365 Portraits project helped get my name out there as well. In this economic climate though, there are thousands of other photographers all going for the same small pie that’s out there. Ultimately I think and hope that it comes down to your work. Do good work and eventually people start to notice.
Is there anybody or anything you would love to photograph?
Sure, in fact I keep a list of them at http://www.billwadman.com/thelist/
I had the chance to shoot some of my heroes during 365. I’m a space and science geek and got to shoot Buzz Aldrin, and Brian Greene, and James Burke, and others. Honestly, those were some of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I like meeting people who are exceptional at what they do. Most of the people on my wishlist are in that category. Tomorrow for instance, I’m heading up to Mt Kisco NY to shoot a Grammy award winning mix engineer who’s work I’ve loved for years. Shooting him will be interesting, but I’m just as excited to meet and chat with him.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve done to gain better access for a shot?
Hmm, I’m not really that kind of photographer. I’ve schmoozed plenty of people and left letters at theaters where people where in shows and such, but that’s as crazy as it gets. Actually, to meet Buzz, I signed up as press for the premiere of a movie about the moon landings where I knew a few of the Apollo guys were going to be. I took some pictures on the red carpet to keep up appearances and then finally got to meet him because I was lucky enough to befriend a guy who just so happened to be something of a business partner of Buzz’s and close to his wife. So he went and chatted with Buzz’s wife and she made it happen. The women always have the power.
Who are the 3-5 most inspiring photographers to you?
This changes constantly. Lately Eric Ogden, Brigitte Lacombe, Stephane Lavoue, Joey Lawrence, and Dan Winters are making me ill. And that’s the highest form of compliment from me. It means that I feel like I’ll never do stuff as cool as them.
What has been your most memorable assignment/project and why?
I’d have to say that 365 Portraits was the most satisfying overall. It was so big and long and with so many facets that it’s hard to compare it with other things. That said, many of my assignments have cool parts to them. For example, I shot Malcolm Gladwell for TIME last year and I just got a copy of “Outliers” in the mail a couple weeks ago with an inscription that said, “To Bill, who made me look like something out of a Rembrandt”. That was pretty great.
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I must say, when I finally discovered Bill’s work, I was astounded. Most recently, I’ve been keeping track of Bill on his current blog, On Taking Pictures. But, I first saw his 365 Portraits project. It must have been in June of that year. I remember spending the whole of that afternoon, looking at each and every portrait before that one day’s. What struck me was that Bill clearly had a certain level of quality, yet shifted in style for each portrait. He truly is a gifted and wonderful artist.
My name is Thomas Hawk. I’m a blogger and American photographer. I’m working to publish 1,000,000 photographs online before I die. I’ll pretty much shoot just about anything.
How did you become interested in photography?
I started taking photographs when I was around 7 years old. I can’t remember where I got it but I used to use a Kodak Instamatic camera. I used to love going to K-Mart to get my photos back after they were developed. I’ve been interested in photography as early as I can remember. When I was 15 I got my first SLR, a Sigma system. I took the camera with me on a bike ride across the U.S. at 15 from Oregon to Delaware. I took a photography course at Glendale Community College the next summer and began developing and printing my own film after that. During high school and college I worked as editor-in-chief of the yearbook and college newspaper and pretty much always had access to a working darkroom during those years. It’s been in my blood for a while.
What was the first photograph that you remember making an impression on you?
I think the first photograph that I remember making an impression was a photograph of a snow woman. My dad took slide photos before I was born when he was stationed in the Air Force up in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and one of the slide photos that he took was of a snow woman (complete with breasts) that he had taken. There was also one of his motorcycle that I remember. When we were kids we used to love to get his slides out and watch slide shows of them in the living room at night.
What were the early steps you took, to grow as a photographer? Are you a self taught photographer or did you have a mentor that showed you the ropes?
Other than the course at Glendale Community College during summer break when I was 16, I’ve had no formal training and would consider myself entirely self taught. My earliest steps were probably in the dark room learning how to print, how to dodge and burn and do other things. I’ve never had a mentor in photography although there are thousands of photographers I’ve watched over the years that I admire very much. Personally I sort of look at my photography in two stages, pre-digital and post-digital. Pre-digital I think my growth took place learning how I could manipulate photos and make them look better and better in the darkroom. I think post digital the major contributor or steps for me involved around learning how to shoot massive amounts of images on a daily basis.
What sort of equipment do you use? Which is most important or vital? Any favorite lenses? Anything you don’t have that you would like to use?
I shoot mostly with a Canon 5D system at present. I’ve got five lenses that I carry with me 24/7 (a 14mm f/2.8, a 24mm f/1.4, a 50mm f/1.2, a 100mm EF Macro, and the 135 f/2). I’ve got a Canon 5D that I use as a back up camera and lots of other gear, tripods, cable releases, memory cards, hard drives, extenders, etc. My favorite lens is the 135 f/2. Right now I think I’ve pretty much got everything I need in terms of gear. Someday when I grow up I’m going to be a Hasselblad. I’d love to work with a Hasselblad system, but the equipment is pretty out of my price range for the time being. I’m really not a big believer in the power of the gear though, I think all the best gear in the world won’t help you much without the right creativity and imagination.
Would you give a brief walk through your work flow?
I take hundreds of photos typically every single day. Some trips involve even more with thousands of photos a day. Each day’s photos are all shot in full resolution RAW format. Each day’s shots go into a folder by that day. Each day’s archives are kept on Drobo storage drives. I work on the images from a given day using Adobe’s Lightroom 2 mostly on a MacBook Pro. Step one is to flag images that I’m interested in. Step two is to use Lightroom’s develop module to process each of these. I have a number of favorite presets that I use more as starting points than anything else in the processing process. As I process the photos I export them as JPG files into a “finished photos” folder.
Once I’m done with a day’s processing I’ll then keyword those images in the Lightroom Library module. After keywording I use Google Maps and geotaggr and geotag my images manually. From here I put these newly keyworded and geotagged processed images into either A or B folders for upload (A being what I consider my stronger images, B being what I consider my weaker images). From here photos are then pulled pretty much at random to be uploaded daily to Flickr and Zooomr. I’m uploading about 300 photos a week at present which are pulled from this growing archive of work.
How do you decide on locations & subjects? Where is your favorite location to take pictures?
I don’t think I have a specific favorite location to shoot in. More generally I’d say the American City. I love the urban environment and think that there is an amazing amount of beauty in America’s cities and even small towns. I’m trying to visit as many American towns and cities as I can and take trips to shoot them. I just got back from Chicago. Earlier this year I shot Reno and Los Angeles. I’d like to visit every city in America to shoot in. Someday I’m going to actually walk across America with my camera. This will be less about American cities and more about America as a whole.
These days though mostly I’m either out and about on the streets of the Bay Area where I live or planning trips to various places. Later this year I’m going to go shoot L.A. more, Reno again, Bakersfield, Redding, and I’ll probably make it up to Yreka at some point. But there are so many American Cities that I still need to shoot and will visit in the months ahead. Dallas, Atlanta, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Boston, Phoenix, Miami, so many places still to shoot.
I love shooting abandoned stuff as well. I’d like to do more with that both in the Bay Area and around America.
Do you rely on lighting (natural, or artificial)?
Almost all my work is done with natural lighting. I’ll do some night light painting and use a Speedlite flash from time to time, but really I’m not a big lighting guy.
In general, during a session, how many pics would you say you take to find “the right one”?
I probably average about 300 photos a day and probably end up processing about 50 of the 300 from a given shoot.
How do you make your subjects feel relaxed in front of the camera?
This is a challenge for me. In a way, my style of shooting is somewhat hyperactive. I move around a lot, jump from scene to scene. I rarely spend much time with any one person unless I know them well. I’m not sure that there is any easy way to get people to feel relaxed other than time. Unless you are willing to invest a lot of time with someone and get to the point where they don’t realize the camera is there anymore I think it will always be difficult to get that sort of relaxed thing. There are some photographers who do this really well. Mary Ellen Mark’s level of intimacy with her subjects can clearly be seen in the photos that she makes. But I don’t think that all portraits necessarily need to be that intimate or even relaxed. Stephen Shore has some amazing portraits of people that he’s taken that he’d just run across in every day life, the guy at the gas station who pumped his gas, the waitress who served him, etc.
When I was in Reno I went into a bar to shoot a neon sign from a dry cleaner that had been moved there to live. I was just going in for 5 minutes to shoot the sign but ended up staying about four hours after meeting Georgia, the bartender who was super friendly and seemed to welcome the intrusion of my camera and willingly posed as she did her thing for hours. I got something in some of these portraits that I don’t think I usually do. But there is a cost. A time commitment. I need to spend more time with people than I do. I think that’s how you get some of the best portraits. It’s a challenge for me.
How do you know when a photo, of yours, is really good?
That’s a good question. I suppose I don’t really know. I’m not the world’s best editor of my own work. Every so often I’ll just feel like I really got something special with a shot. Usually I know right then and there that I have something important. Frequently, but not always, many of these shots turn out to be some of my most popular shots when posted online. Other times though I’ll find something that I just love and most people could care less when I post it. Good is such a subjective term. Honestly I have no idea.
How would you describe your style?
active, hyperactive, democratic, digital.
Do you ever find yourself in a “photo funk”, and, if so, how do you get out of it?
Sometimes I do actually. The best thing to do is to simply force yourself to shoot anyways. Sometimes I get bored of San Francisco. How many times can I wander the Tenderloin or the Financial District or the Mission and shoot? But really that’s the difference between the great artist and the good artist. There is a discipline I believe that comes with forcing yourself to work. If you look at some of the greatest artists you’ll see that they had insatiable work ethics. William Eggleston, Andy Warhol, street photographers like Garry Winogrand. Lee Friedlander. The sheer number of photos that these photographers is boggling. Charles Bukowski once said that endurance was more important than truth. I believe that when you find yourself in a “photo funk” you have to reach deep down and find the discipline that forces you onward. You’ll get over it. But you won’t get over it unless you get out there with your camera and start clicking.
How do you market yourself? Do you advertise? If so where? How important is an awesome website for your business?
Personally for me marketing is entirely unimportant right now. I don’t advertise. I have a blog and a flickrstream and a Twitter account and a Facebook account and a FriendFeed account and all that, but I’m mostly using these for personal interaction and enjoyment rather than any business purposes per se. I do sell photos all the time, but at present I’m not really interested in proactively marketing my work. Right now the focus is more on doing the work that needs to be done which is largely being out shooting and processing and posting.
Is there anybody or anything you would love to photograph?
Oh a few million things. I think I’ve got a Google Map set up for every state in America. Each state is filled with pushpins of locations I’d like to shoot. I’m collecting images of neon signs so many are of there. But there are countless cemeteries, malls, abandoned sites, landmarks, etc. that I need and would love to shoot. I’m always interested in shooting interesting looking people. Famous interesting looking people, not famous interesting looking people. But no one specifically that I’d say I really would love to photograph. I do suppose there are some specific heroes of mine that I’d love an opportunity to shoot in my lifetime. People like William Eggleston or Lee Friedlander.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve done to gain better access for a shot?
Wow, I’m not really sure on that. I suppose a lot of great sites for shooting are not technically sort of public areas for shooting. Abandoned locations. Hotels. Commercial Office Space with high security. I suppose I generally operate under the assumption that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission and tend to take an attitude more conducive to urban exploration. So sometimes you have to be creative to get to some of these locations. I’m not sure anything specific comes to mind though.
Who are the 3-5 most inspiring photographers to you?
Well that’s a super tough question because there are literally thousands of photographers that I admire, but for a quick short list I’d probably say William Eggleston, Garry Winogrand, Stephen Shore, Lee Friedlander, Andy Warhol and Angelo Rizzuto. I also admire the work of many of the photo realist painters, especially people like Richard Estes, but the whole genre there is pretty spectacular.
What has been your most memorable assignment/project and why?
I think my most memorable assignment hasn’t happened yet. To that end I have sort a personal saying that I say which is that the best photographs in the world have yet to be taken. There are so many great shoots that I’ve been on though, too many at this point though really to call any specific assignment or project most memorable.
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I’ve enjoyed getting to know Thomas over the past few years. Thomas was the first person to introduce me to photowalking. Since then, I’ve met some quite wonderful photographers, who turned out to be pretty neat people too. If you’re looking for someone to motivate you, if for no other reason than the shear mountain of photos he creates ever day, check out more of Thomas’ work. You can find his stuff on Flickr and Zooomr.
Hey there! I hope you’re having a good weekend. Over the past week or so, I’ve been toying with a handful of ideas that I believe will help increase our contribution to your growth as a photographer.
There are so many wonderful blogs and websites dedicated to helping your grow. Most are specific, and sometimes generic. I consider myself a self-taught photographer, and this is mostly due to these great websites. So the challenge for me is to try and be different.
Our primary focus here at PhotoChallenge.org is to be the number one place for challenging yourself to take your photography to the next level. No matter what level photographer you are today, our hope is that tomorrow you’ve grown just a bit more. That’s why we do all these challenges. We’re less interested in a winner, or even the best shot. We’re more interested in you pushing yourself to grow creatively and technically as a photographer.
Increasingly today we’re finding that many really top notch photographers were not traditionally trained. Many of the most exciting names in photography learned the way most of you and I have learned, online and with a few books.
So I set out to chat with a few of those photographers. I wanted to get a peek at what makes them tick and what sets them apart. Sometimes it takes a close study of someone, to see their special traits. So, let me introduce you to a handful of photographers, with the hopes that you’ll take a closer look and see what they have to say that resonates with you.
Over the next few weeks, Jeremy and I will be interviewing and posting articles about some really great photographers. Keep coming back for more, and we’ll do our best to introduce you to some new names and faces.
Tell us a little bit about yourself?
Tell us a little bit about yourself?
