Evolution

I recently discovered a photographer named Dan Winters. I am embarrassed that I did not know of him earlier. I consider myself reasonably well educated about the history of photography and I try to keep up with standout photographers. Yet somehow, I had never heard of Winters. I came across him in a YouTube video on The Photographic Eye channel. I bought his book, Road to Seeing, on Kindle, and consumed it in a few days. I found him to be a kindred spirit. We were both raised in southern California in an era when love was rumored to be free and ambition included satori, the Zen term for enlightenment. Reading Winters, I saw what might have been had I ignored my father’s advice to choose print journalism over photojournalism in graduate school. I am glad I have lived long enough to explore both print and photography.

I recently returned from the Paragon Open DanceSport Championships in Stamford, Connecticut. I went as a dancer, not as a photographer. But I brought along a small photo kit and amused myself in the down times by shooting keepsakes for a few fellow pro-am dancers and shooting some random images of the professional competitors. The results were pleasing, and helped to prepare me for a paid gig shooting theatrical dance upon my return to Minnesota.

Live performances demand good timing and technical skills. The lighting changes constantly, both in color and intensity. So it’s impossible to pick a white balance that will work across all scenes. Fortunately, the “average white balance” setting on modern cameras can serve as a good starting point. And if you shoot in the raw format, as I do, you will be able to readjust the color to suit your vision.

With ballroom competitions, I found it best to set the camera’s electronic sensor sensitivity, called ISO, to between 1600-3200. For theatrical dance productions, I set my camera to “auto-ISO” with a maximum sensitivity of 8,000. I used the higher setting because theatrical dance often involves several characters on stage in different distances from the lens, so a smaller aperture is required to keep the performers within the depth of field (i.e., in focus). In live performances, one must remember to expose for the highlights. The intense white stage lights can easily get blown out, making it impossible to pull out any details, whereas shadows generally can be raised a bit in post-production. Doing so will increase the electronic “noise,” or graininess, however, which can ruin a photograph. One way to deal with this is to render the image in high-contrast black and white, possibly even adding “grain” to simulate film photography. This is appropriate — even desirable — for dramatic scenes. But it can feel misplaced for scenes like romantic interludes. What all of this means is a lot of time in post-production. The results are worth the extra work, however.

As I head into winter I am looking forward to shooting more environmental and studio portraits and headshots, where I can precisely control the lighting. I am drawing on insights from master craftsmen and craftswomen who have generously shared their experience and vision. In February, I will fly to Austin, Texas for the Pas de Deux dance photography conference, which is bringing together some of the best in the business. I want to try my hand at ballet photography. If you’re an aspiring dancer, please give me a call. Maybe we can swap some posing time for photographs. I also look forward to shooting more dance competitions next year as I prepare for my own entry in the U.S. Dance Championship next September in Florida before my knees give out.

And I am proud to say I will be the official photographer for the American Judo & Jujitsu Federation’s annual convention in Charlotte, N.C. April 8-10.

Perhaps I’ll see you in the viewfinder.

Senior moment

Kathy Combs prepares for her production performance at Cinema Ballroom with pro Spencer Baloga Loufek.

I got an urgent message from a client recently who needed a senior photo of her son, pronto. It would just take an hour, she said. She wanted shots by Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. I agreed to do it. I normally charge an extra fee for rush orders but I waived it this time. My “one-hour” fee would have to cover an hour of shooting, 50 minutes of round-trip travel and three hours of editing and retouching.

I enjoyed the shoot. It was a beautiful day and a great way to wrap up the weekend after my shift at National Camera Exchange in Golden Valley, Minnesota. The young man I shot was quite pleasant. I’ve known him for about six years but haven’t seen him in some time, and I was pleased to see how he has matured. I shot his sister’s quinceañera recently so I was happy to be trusted by the family for repeat business.

I edited the photos quickly, retouching most of the best ones. Then it occurred to me that the short deadline might be because these are intended for the yearbook. My client had neglected to tell me that, or to send me the yearbook photo requirements until after I called to ask about this. Generally, school districts insist on a uniform, plain dark background for yearbook photos. This ensures uniformity in the look of the page. I offered a quick studio shot at no charge. However, some districts allow photos taken outdoors, and that was the case for this young man. So it worked out. That was a relief, because I had another big job in the wings.

I shot tech rehearsals for a two-day dance production at my ballroom studio. Another photographer who’d been asked to photograph the performances later turned down the job, so I stepped in at the last minute. The performances are short skits based on a theme. This year, they were interpreting movies. My own skit interpreted Terminator 2. Because I was dancing, I had my daughter shoot my skit, plus a couple of others while I changed. She also shot for the fun it from time to time when I was working. I was honored to be shooting side-by-side with this talented young woman. But that’s another story.

We were shooting on silent mode because we were next to a video camera and so as not to disturb the audience. This makes it hard to gauge how many shots you’re taking. When I wrapped up the two-day shoot, I had about 9,000 photos, including those from the rehearsals that I shot on spec. My contract called for delivery of (minimally) edited photographs within a week. I worked night and day until I was cross-eyed, but finished the job just in time. The ballroom will upload them to a site that lets the dancers choose copies (digital or print). I cannot share these photos without permission of the ballroom, which is selling them. Eventually, I may post some to my web page and other locations to promote my photography business.

When you hire a photographer, please try to remember that your money covers more than just the creative services fee. It takes time to prep the gear, plan the shoot, upload the images for editing, back up the images, edit the images and then transfer them to the client or get them printed and delivered. A professional will do whatever it takes to produce the best images for you. Planning ahead helps everyone get the best experience.

Martin Pickering, a professional ballroom dancer, rehearses with Aimee Neumann for their interpretation of Moulin Rouge.

If you’re interested in family photos for holiday cards, senior photos, calendars or special events coverage, give me a call and we can start a conversation.

Starbucks enlightenment

Shinzen Kai and Aikido of Minnesota dojo

Many years ago I was in a Starbucks outlet getting my daily caffeine reinforcement when I noticed a book titled, Wherever You Go, There You Are. It was written by Jon Kabat-Zinn and subtitled, Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. The simplicity of that title appealed to me. I didn’t find it necessary to read the book; I got the message. It’s one I have drawn on and shared many times since that morning.

A couple of weeks ago I was on a lunch break from my job at National Camera & Video. I noticed a black and white poster featuring Wilma Rudolph, once known as the fastest woman in the world. The photographer was Brian Lanker, a name that struck a chord. I looked him up later that day and realized that he had been at the Eugene Register-Guard when I was getting my master’s degree in journalism at the University of Oregon. I went through Lanker’s website and saw that he’d published a book on dance photography titled, Shall We Dance. Maya Angelou wrote the forward. I ordered a copy and spent the next few days savoring both the text and the images. I noted that Lanker (who died in 2011), sometimes chose photos that were blurred, or with skewed horizons, to great effect. Would I have made those choices? I wondered.

Wherever I go, there I am.

If I had not taken a part-time job, I would not have seen Lanker’s poster, which had been cast aside under a TV stand. I would not have purchased his book. I would not be writing this now. But none of that matters. Wherever I go, there I am.

I ponder this as I pose the question, what is my photographic style?

Close. Dramatic. Layered.

My style is both rooted yet evolving. It builds up and wears away like desert sand. Over time, the land appears to shift. What seems like a cataclysmic change — say, after a flood — gets subsumed in the blanket of time. Even so, the essence of the material remains the same. Hard stones remain hard; soft stones remain soft.

Keep your eyes open, and your mind free.

Cowboy waltz

Len and Deborah Ferrington. (Provided photo)

I got some terrible news a couple of days ago. A friend I have known for six years, Len Ferrington, died unexpectedly from a heart attack while bicycling with his wife. I posted some photos on Facebook of our times together from various ballroom dance events. Others did the same. It’s clear from the accompanying comments that Len was universally loved and respected. He spent his days researching insects. At 72, he had no immediate plans to retire from his job at the University of Minnesota. He was preparing to go to Scandinavia for a rural research project, and studying the mandolin. He was learning choreography for a couple of dances in an upcoming live performance. He was seemingly always in good spirits. He said his wife, Deborah, was a finalist for a job in California that he believed would result in a career-capping promotion. He was excited for her, but said he would stay in Minnesota if she got the job. They had managed such temporary separations before and he had no doubt they would work it out again.

Len during on of his research projects on midges in southeast Minnesota. (Provided photo)

Len, wearing a cap from one of the annual Snow Ball dance competitions. (Provided photo)

Len’s death surprised us all because he was fit and easy going. If he had any health concerns they were well concealed. As I poured through my photos of Len it occurred to me that many of my friends in the ballroom world were growing older, and few are in as good physical condition as was Len — myself included. I thought, I am glad I relentlessly take pictures at our dance events. The images help us reflect on good times. They are evidence that we were here and times were good. Then I thought, am I going to go through this process again and again, as my friends pass? If I’m around, of course, I will.

Angela Chirpich. (Photo by Dan Browning/Danzante Photography LLC)

Len’s death serves as a counterpoint to a quinceañera celebration that I shot last month. Angela, the young lady turning fifteen, had a retinue of friends helping her move about in a hoop skirt reminiscent of Gone with the Wind. Her parents wanted keepsakes from the event and hired me to memorialize it. I was deeply honored. Angela and her mom went through the photos together at my house about the time that Len set out on his last bike ride. They loved the photos and relived the event as they tried to narrow their selections for retouching and prints.

Len Ferrington with Grace Peterson. Photo by Dan Browning/Danzante Photography LLC.

One life was getting started as another was coming to a close, or perhaps a transition. Our lives are brief, and fade like morning mist. But those memories will carry on, encapsulated in photographs with the power to awaken them from time to time. When times are tough, photographs can remind us that they also have been good, and promise to be good again. Len got that, and celebrated photos of himself dancing, especially the Argentine tango.

In 2018, Len lost a nephew who died at age 46 from multiple myeloma, leaving a young family. He wrote, “We are working on creating a positive vision for the future. Much concern about the immediate family and their current needs.” He lost his father and mother-in-law in 2019. He acknowledged the losses, but did not dwell on them. He always looked to the light, and often sent a link to one of his favorite songs or videos or jokes. Here’s one he sent me in 2019.

A time to reap

In August I attended the Heart of America DanceSport Championships in Kansas City, Missouri. It was a fantastic opportunity, both for my photography and for my dancing. The event hosts were unable to find a stills photographer to do the traditional floor shots. This involves several grueling 15-hour days, where the photographer must shoot every dancer with the hope that the work will be good enough to generate enough sales to cover expenses and to eke out a reasonable profit. For the dancers, the photographs are not cheap, and they range widely in quality because of the circumstances under which they are shot. I wouldn’t mind being a second-shooter in such circumstances but I wouldn’t want to do this kind of photography for a living. The absence of a regular “floor photographer” presented me an opportunity to showcase my own style of “bespoke” photography, however.

I offered to shoot just one couple per “round,” which consists of three to five different dances, for a flat fee. I guaranteed my clients at least 15 photos from which they could choose three to be edited and retouched. Of course, they could choose more for an additional charge. As usual, I over delivered — exponentially. My clients said they were happy with the results and preferred them over the traditional floor photography, where it’s catch as catch can.

When I wasn’t hired to cover a particular couple or round, I shot on spec, and also for myself. The event hosts also tapped me to shoot the lineups of the scholarship winners and other special presentations (when I wasn’t dancing myself). I also took some candid shots to help the hosts tell the story of Heart of America in their promotional materials next year. Finally, I shot the professional competitions, as much for me as for the hosts. You can see some of the photos on my gallery page from the event.

Even after attending numerous competitions and competing in them myself, I still find them breathtakingly beautiful. I don’t think my custom photography service will replace the traditional floor photographer model. But I do believe it can be offered to benefit both the dancers and the event hosts. Photographers who do the traditional floor service may fear that this would encroach on their sales, but that is easy to resolve. We can work together as a unit, with a percentage of sales from my concierge service going to the floor photographer to offset any potential losses, thereby providing a guaranteed sale. I would be happy to discuss this add-on service with event hosts and floor photographers. I believe it’s in everyone’s interest. Give me a call!

My photography at Heart of America was limited somewhat by my own dancing. I consistently hit the top of my form, which offset the anxiety that swamped me as I faced a series of computer failures. I have heard my colleagues say that the mark of a professional photographer is that they get the job done, regardless of the problems they encounter. I am proud to say I measured up this time. Now, I must prepare for a quinceañera assignment with looming predictions of thunderstorms. More to come.

Balance

Jessie Kleitz

When I had tendonitis in my left ankle several years ago, I went to a physical therapist who specializes in dancers. She was a short, squat woman who also teaches ballet. I don’t do ballet, but ballroom dancing shares some of its terminology. I wavered as I rose into relevé. She slapped me on my left butt cheek and snapped, “Tighten it up. Tighten it up! You must use your butt to help stabilize the ankle.” Her advice and some gua sha had me pain free and stabile within a few weeks.

So what does that have to do with photography?

Life is a balancing act. Lamar Fisher, my first jujutsu instructor, taught that we have 24 hours in a day: 8 for work, 8 for sleep, and 8 for family, recreation, study, health care, commuting, etc. One can borrow from one category to benefit another, but it’s important to pay that back to keep life balanced. That’s easy for me to forget. I have obsessive tendencies, and various parts of my life suffer for it. I go too far, until a health crisis or personal crisis demands attention. Hence, the tendonitis.

Jim Maffei

Patti Maffei

I’ve been juggling dance, photography, health care, home maintenance, dating and other activities for the past few months. It feels like I’ve been dropping some of those balls. I’ve had some minor health challenges for the past couple of months, and I started a new part-time job in May at the National Camera Exchange in Golden Valley, Minnesota. I also have ramped up my ballroom dancing to prepare for the Twin Cities Open competition in July and the Heart of America Dancesport Championships in Kansas City, Aug. 12-14. As a result, I have not done nearly enough photography in recent weeks. I convinced my sister Patti and her husband Jim to sit for some headshots during a recent visit. And I’m scheduled to shoot a family portrait in a few days. But I’ve been aching for more. That should change in Kansas City.

I have a client scheduled for my “personal photographer” services on the first day of the competition. After that, I will be dancing more than usual, but I also have some photography duties at the comp, and will be offering portraits as well. (Note: I will not be the official floor photographer for the competition; I will be dancing too much myself.) Upon my return to the Twin Cities, I have a portrait session scheduled with dance-pro Georgie Anderson to experiment with some lighting techniques. Not all of these are paid gigs, but I remember the sage advice of my late wife, Liz Cummings Browning, a talented singer-songwriter and keyboard player: “You have to support your art until your art supports you.”

I think my physical therapist would agree.

With fall approaching, I’m now bookings sessions for portraits, headshots, sports, family gatherings and some commercial work. Drop me a line if you’re interested: dan@danzantephotography.com.

Heart of America

Shane and Shannon Jensen draw the attention of the audience at Heart of America in 2019.

Attention ballroom dancers: I will be competing in, and offering portraits at the annual Heart of America DanceSport competition in Kansas City, Missouri Aug. 12-14. I will be dancing a fair amount so if you’re interested in a portrait, please contact me so that we can arrange a time. Perhaps you saw my photographs at the Twin Cities Open competition in Minneapolis or the Savannah Dance Classic in Georgia. Now is your chance to be featured in one.

The portraits I’m offering go well beyond snapshots you take after competing, though those are fun keepsakes. The portraits I make with you will result in fine art prints suitable for display in your home or office. They are conversation starters and will help your friends and family understand your passion for dance.

The Heart of America competition, hosted by Michelle and Eric Hudson of Cinema Ballroom in St. Paul, Minnesota, always draws top talent in both the pro-am and professional classes. I hope to see you there, whether you’re dancing or supporting those who are.

Twin Cities Open…

Amateur dancer Zoe Kaplan at TCO in 2019.

Happy Fourth of July!

It’s a fitting celebration to mark the beginning of a week that ends in the annual Twin Cities Open ballroom dance competition at the Hyatt Regency Downtown Minneapolis. This competition has been run continuously by Amy and Scott Anderson for more than 30 years. It draws some of the nation’s top ballroom dancers.

I will be among those competing this year. Instructor Grace Peterson and I plan to perform a solo dance to the Ahn Trio’s rendition of Prince’s song, “Purple Rain.” (Our choreography was crafted by Tony Meredith.) We also will be competing in the silver divisions of American Ballroom and International Standard styles.

Dan Browning performing a solo titled “Purple Reign” with instructor Grace Peterson.

When I’m not dancing, I will be offering two types of portraits this year. I will have a backdrop set up outside the competition floor for dancers who want a studio-style portrait, either alone or with their instructor. And I will offer location portraits, either in the hotel or nearby in the community, for those seeking something more elaborate. Both types of portraits will come with up to five edited jpgs. The studio-style shot will come with an 8x10 or 8x12 print. And the location portraits will come with a 16x20 or 16x24 fine art print on styrene backing. Other sizes and media are available as well, of course. Note: I won’t be shooting on the dance floor at this competition, due to contractual conflicts.

Whether you’re interested in a portrait or not, please drop by and say hello. And if you’ve never been to a ballroom dance competition, consider attending either Friday or Saturday night for the professional categories. They are something akin to a combination of ballet and hockey.

Meantime, here are a couple of shots I took at a recent dance recital, called a “showcase”, at Cinema Ballroom in St. Paul. Enjoy!

Cinema Ballroom pros Eric Hudson with Grace Peterson.

Instructor Grace Peterson dancing jive with Keith Vasilakes.

Patience

I have been ahead of the beat much of my life. In dance, that is simply off time. It makes one look frantic. To be late, we dancers are taught, is to be “musical.” The dancer who is just behind the beat appears to relish the moment, and the observer can savor it as well. No need to hurry. The dancer and the audience become absorbed in the interlude.

This is a lesson I was taught many years ago by the late Bud Estes, a 10th-degree black belt in Danzan Ryu jujutsu. Move ahead of a knife thrust or a punch and your attacker will have the time and opportunity to redirect the attack to the trajectory of your new line. Wait a split second longer and the commitment of the attack can be countered.

Dance and martial arts, these are the wellsprings I draw upon to understand life. I thought of this the other day when my son ate a banana that he thought was going bad. He generally likes his bananas slightly green, with no visible dark spots on the skin. But as he was about to discard what he thought was an over-ripened banana, he took a bite. To his great surprise, he found the flavor even more delicious. He caught it at its peak.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1980-1904), a French photographer considered to be the progenitor of street photography and modern photojournalism, published a book in 1952 titled, Images à la sauvette, or “Images on the sly.” The English title was The decisive moment, and it described the elusive goal of most photographers: Release the shutter the instant a composition is fully ripened.

“All things come to those who wait,” an old proverb says. But the second half of that saying counsels that while they come, they often come too late. So we get anxious and strike early, missing the decisive moment.

I bring this up because I just bought a new camera, the Sony Alpha 1. It can shoot up to 30 frames a second. Many photographers obsess over frame rate as a way to hit that decisive moment. And this camera, no doubt, might help. Or not. It shoots large files. The “spray and pray” method of photography will quickly fill up memory cards, decreasing the photographer’s opportunity to get the best shot as they fumble around for a new card. Richard Tsong-Taatarii, a talented photojournalist at the Star Tribune newspaper, once chuckled as he saw me snapping a lens cap on my lens.

“Do you know what we call lens caps?” he asked.

I didn’t.

“Too-late filters,” he said.

Lesson learned. There is no substitute for timing, and you cannot get the shot if you’re not prepared.

I recently returned from Savannah, Georgia, where I competed in a ballroom dance competition. I also had set up vendor table and solicited clients for my photography business. I was hoping to get some contracts for portraits. Alas, I got none, though dancers did stop to admire my work. Some took my business cards and promotional fliers. I didn’t want to return to Minneapolis empty-handed, so I decided to shoot some photos of a friend with our professional dance instructor.

Then I was asked by the parents of two other professional dancers if I had any images of their sons. I did, but I wanted more. So I shot the professional competition that evening. I was happy with the results and a couple of modest sales followed.

When I returned home and tallied my expenses and pending income from the trip, I realized that this was not a sustainable business model. But then I caught a couple of YouTube videos from some of my favorite photographers who counseled patience. Success in this business won’t come in one or two years, they said. It’s not unusual to spend a decade building a photography business to profitability. I remembered my dad telling me the story of the inventor who made a soda-pop. He tried 1-Up, 2-Up, 3-Up, 4-Up, 5-Up and 6-Up, then threw in the towel. The next guy, of course, invented 7-Up.

My next dance competition will be at the Twin Cities Open in Minneapolis July 8-11. I will have a vendor table outside the ballroom and will be offering portraits to dancers on location. (I won’t be shooting on the dance floor this time due to contractual issues.) Please stop by and say hello, even if you’re not ready to be photographed. All things in due time.

On the road again…

Dance instructor Grace Peterson with one of her students, Patrick Moriarity, at the City Lights Open competition in 2017.

I can’t claim to be a huge Willie Nelson fan, but his “On the road again” song comes to mind now. After 15 months of being tied down by the coronavirus pandemic, I’m about to travel again. I’m heading to Georgia next week, where I will be competing in a ballroom dance competition and offering portraits and personal photographer services to my fellow competitors at the Savannah Dance Classic. This will be my first trip to Georgia, which I believe is the only U.S. state I have not spent time in. I’ve heard rave reviews of this competition and about the city of Savannah, and I’m excited to be going with dance instructor Grace Peterson and my fellow student, Pat Moriarity.

I’ve competed a number times but this will mark my first time as a vendor at a dance competition. A couple of years ago, before I started Danzante Photography LLC, I had lunch with entrepreneur and photographer Preston Palmer to pick his brain about the business. I asked about his training program for wedding photographers, and he correctly deduced that I had no desire to specialize in that genre. He asked what I liked to shoot. I said, dancers and portraits, mostly. Dance competitions usually hire an exclusive photographer to cover the competition floor. Competitors review the photos on an iPad and select the keepsakes they want. Because the photographers must shoot everyone, however, the results can be uneven. The photos aren’t cheap, but considering the investment the photographers must make and the volume they must shoot, I think they’re reasonable. There are a handful of photographers dominating this space. But few if any of these event photographers offer the dancers formal portraits on location. Preston suggested I consider doing so. Why not? The dancers spend a small fortune on gowns, hair and makeup, jewelry, suits, lodging and travel, so they might be willing to sit for a formal portrait suitable for exhibition in their living rooms, he said.

I was talking about this idea with a well-respected dance instructor and competition owner, who said he always thought it would be wise to offer “personal photographer” services to dancers. It’s basically documentary photography, following the dancer through practice, dressing, competing, and a portrait. I loved that idea, so I am offering it — for the first time — in Savannah. Grace Peterson was kind enough to let me build a sample page of those services on my website (see the link above). The end result would include some digital images, of course, but significantly, it would include a large wall portrait, an album, or even a book. The details are customized, so the prices vary. Let me know if you’re interested!

Next up, I will be offering portraits at the Twin Cities Open in mid July. Due to contractual issues, however, I won’t be able to shoot on the dance floor there, so the personal photographer services won’t work here.

This photo, of Zoe Kaplan, was taken outside the ballroom at the Twin Cities Open in 2019 as part of her high school graduation images.

My next scheduled comp where I will offer personal photographer services is the Heart of America Dancesport Championships in Kansas City, Missouri, in August.

Mark Querna with instructor Georgietta Anderson during the 2019 nightclub competition at Heart of America Dancesport Championships.

Meantime, I am open to traveling elsewhere for clients who want a professional portrait or other photographic services. Give me a call at 612-655-5020 and we can talk.

Choices

Katia Edwards and her son, John.

Habituation is necessary for survival. Without it, we would be awash in stimulation, unable to focus on traffic as we make a turn or a tree root that might fell us on a hike. Unfortunately, it also keeps us from seeing the beauty around us or opportunities that come our way. In our rush through the day, we miss so much that might otherwise lead to life-changing journeys. I was driving my regular route to the ballroom the other day when I noticed the Midway Book Store, a massive repository of used and rare books in St. Paul, Minnesota. I had not ventured into that store in more than 20 years, but I decided that day to check out its holdings on photography. What treasures awaited me inside. I bought two hardcover books: Portraits, by Helmut Newton, and Portraiture, by Imogen Cunningham.

I was familiar with both photographers but had never studied their work closely. Newton’s work concentrated on celebrities and fashion and was starkly sexual. Cunningham got her start in the studio of Edward Curtis, the most famous photographer of Native Americans. But her work was no less assertive or conventional than Newton’s. Of the two, I found Cunningham’s work to be the most profound. The subtleties of her images invited the viewer to linger, and made me want to hang them on my wall to enjoy over time. Had I not diverted from my daily routine to explore the bookstore, I would have missed this trove of ideas and beauty. What else am I missing? Alas, we cannot stop everywhere.

I bring this up because some friends were talking about what they wished they had known in high school, and how their lives might be different now as they enter middle age. Their comments were insightful but I remarked that whatever path they had taken, they’d be doing the same kind of analysis today. Every choice we make takes us down a path and deviates from the road not taken. Had I not wandered into Cinema Ballroom in February 2015, where would I be today? Would I have retired from my newspaper career to start a photography business? Perhaps, but likely not. What’s clear is that the essence that enervates my body would have followed its own trajectory as it matures. Which is to say, I’d still be me, only in a different setting.

I’m lucky to have traveled the path I’m on today. My ballroom dancing connected me to a master instructor, Eric Hudson, who connected me to a seamstress, Katia Edwards, who happened to be looking for a photographer. Katia, who is from Peru, is a folklorico dancer. She wanted some portraits in five different costumes, “before I’m too old.” I gave her a good price and got the job. Katia arrived at my studio with her mother and son John, a pre-med student and sometimes dance partner. The costumes were exquisite, and Katia came alive before my camera. My daughter and I particularly enjoyed the love Katia, her mother and son displayed. Had I not taken up ballroom dancing, which rekindled my love for photography, it’s unlikely I would have met them.

I am reminded of two passages from literature that I frequently draw upon for their wisdom.

The first, by Carlos Castaneda, is from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge: “All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. ... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”

The second, by Rudyard Kipling, is from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

Vision

Several weeks ago when I sat down at the computer I noticed it was hard to read text. The light from the screen caused a flare in my right eye and I could not focus with it. My eye burned slightly and the eyelid felt like it was sticking to my eyeball. It felt like I was looking through mucous. I tried rubbing it and washing it in a shotglass. The symptoms subsided only slightly. This was especially troubling because I had a retina separation in that eye in 2009. I was told just before surgery that I had a 50:50 chance of losing all vision in that eye. Miraculously, the surgeon saved my eye by sucking out the gelatinous fluid, laser-stapling my retina back into place and securing a scleral buckle around my eyeball. My vision was restored to 20:20, better than since I was in grade school.

Hence, my latest problems caused special concern. After a few days I called my optometrist. A technician advised me to try eyedrops and if things didn’t improve, to make an appointment. I tried, and thought there was some mild improvement, but not much. My optometrist said I had some swelling in my cornea and she prescribed a steroid. I returned in two days and they documented mild improvement with my vision. I returned a few days later for a check up but there was a mild regression. She referred me to an opthamologist. He said my eye looked healthy, other than the swelling. The goal, then, was to reduce the swelling with another steroid, and if that fails, there are other methods like scraping the cornea to let it regrow healthy cells. But we are not there yet, thankfully.

As I get older, the insults from a moderately adventurous lifestyle have returned again and again to degrade my health. A knee injury in seventh grade football, followed by injuries from skiing, judo and jujitsu, led to several meniscus-trimming procedures and an ACL replacement which ultimately failed. Now my knee is bone-on-bone in the medial side, making my competitive dancing increasingly difficult. Similarly, I unknowingly broke my wrists — several times — leading to painful arthritis. I also have severed a biceps tendon in both my left and right arms (in separate martial arts activities), and have torn my rotator cuffs in both shoulders. All of my arm and shoulder injuries have been repaired successfully.

The deepest wound (so far), however, was the loss of my wife, Liz Cummings Browning, to frontotemporal dementia in 2014. And yet, I have carried on and recovered. In some important ways, I have improved. I have learned to remain optimistic, to do whatever I can to regain my strength and to let go of those things I once did easily but now seem impossible. It works, mostly. People say I am resilient.

My resilience is wearing thin, however. Have you felt this way?

Whenever I start into a downward spiral I know what to do. I am rejuvenated every time I walk into a ballroom or bow into a dojo. So I just keep going, having faith that my body will heal and carry me forward in its own time. I also feel this way when I have a client to photograph. Of course, I have self-doubts. But I know to use them to help me prepare. I know going in that I will fail in some ways. But I also know I will learn from those failures to become better. I know not to let perfection be the enemy of the good.

A photograph depicts a moment, frozen in time. A great photograph suggests the trajectory behind the image and invites the viewer to wander forward. If it’s an honest photo, there will be imperfections. There may be scars, or wrinkles, or deformitities. But they will reveal or highlight the beauty and strength of the image.

Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn't mean he lacks vision. — Stevie Wonder

‘Perception is strong and sight weak.’

Those words were penned by Miyamoto Musashi in 1645 in his treatise on battle strategy, A Book of Five Rings. Widely considered to be one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen, Musashi had felled 60 opponents in duels by age 30. He then retired to a life of painting and philosophy. His book has been widely adapted to business and other endeavors, including medicine. It seems particularly applicable to photography.

As our society slowly emerges from the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been slowly recovering from my rotator cuff surgery. I have begun dancing again, trying to lose those COVID pounds that keep me from wearing my dance pants. Daytime temperatures in the Twin Cities recently crossed into the 70s, offering a glimpse of spring. I arranged a portrait session with Grace Peterson, one of my dance instructors, at the beautiful Van Dusen Mansion in Minneapolis. The shoot went well and we are going back soon for another session. The site has special significance to me. The last time I was in the building, it was being cleaned out by court-appointed receivers assigned to pick over the remains of a massive Ponzi scheme that had been run from site. My reporting was at least partly responsible for demise of the scheme and the ultimate conviction of its organizers. Seeing the Van Dusen restored as an event center was especially satisfying. Other good things have been happening on the photographic front as well. I was part of a members’ show at the Praxis Photo Arts Center in Minneapolis, and the Star Tribune just hired me to contribute photos and an article on ballroom dance to its upcoming spring magazine. I also have arranged to sell portraits and “personal photographer” services at the Savannah Dance Classic in Georgia in June, where I also plan to be competing with Grace Peterson.

All signs point to recovery. And yet, a cautionary note. I was scrolling through YouTube videos this morning and tripped across one about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The instructor in the video is a successful judo player who demonstrates ways to get out of a particularly nettlesome position called the “closed guard.” The specifics are not important here. But his message is: Be careful when executing these moves, because there is no way out without risk. Don’t be tempted to try to recover to an attack position before you’re completely free of the closed guard, or you could end up losing. My grandmother might say, don’t put the cart before the horse.

Timing, as we know in photography and in life, is everything.

I have been fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, but I am not taking unnecessary risks. I sanitize my gear, regularly wash my hands and still wear a face mask when photographing models. Of course, they are not wearing masks because of the nature of photography. The important thing is to minimize risk where possible. The time will come when these precautions won’t be required, but we’re not there yet.

Which brings me back to Musashi and the quote I cited in the headline. He continues:

“In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. It is important strategy to know an enemy’s sword and not to be distracted by insignificant movements of his sword. You must study this. The gaze is the same for single combat and for large-scale strategy.

“It is necessary in strategy to be able to look to both sides without moving the eyeballs. You cannot master this ability quickly. Learn what is written here; use this gaze in everyday life and do not vary it whatever happens.”

A photographer trains the eye to see everything in the frame and to anticipate when more space will be needed for final production, such as mounting a canvas print on a wrap-around frame. We look for composition — the broad view — as well as focus — the narrow view. We give direction yet watch for spontaneity within the structure. If we’re any good at all, we fail sometimes. We push our skills, we experiment with our vision. But we make sure we get the shot before packing our gear away.

So I encourage those of you who can to get the shot. COVID-19 is a fearsome enemy. And we still have images to make.

Connections

Recently, one of my former jujutsu students, Fedja Kecman, reached out for some advice about which camera he should buy. I told him to select a mirrorless camera, which seems to be the future. (I have both a mirrorless Sony A9II and a DSLR, the Canon 5DIV.) He bought the Canon R6 and I offered to let him borrow my Canon 70-200 f/2.8L II zoom lens. Though I rarely see Fedja anymore, I think of him as a dear friend. We scheduled a time for him to come to my house and show me the camera, which is incredibly small and light, and he also agreed to sit for a headshot.

The session went well, despite the fact that I’m out of practice due to pandemic restrictions. I still am limited in the use of my right arm after my shoulder surgery, so I had Fedja help me to set up the lights and modifiers on C stands. I plugged in my laptop and started shooting tethered with Capture One Pro. I explained to Fedja how to set up certain modifiers (2x3’ softbox, 1x3’ strip light, beauty dish, grids, etc.) and why I selected them. He works at 3M in the optics division and his understanding of light is way beyond my own, so he was a quick study. At one point we talked about incident light contamination and noticed that I was shooting at 2500 ISO! I felt like a fool. I normally shoot at 100-200 ISO when using monolights (strobes). Even so, I looked at the images and they seemed relatively free of noise. Then we talked about how a wide aperture affects an image.. I usually shoot headshots at f/8 to keep the full head in focus. But to demonstrate a point, I took a photo of Fedja at f/1.4 using ambient light from some small overhead fixtures. Unfortunately, I used the aperture ring on my Sony 85mm GM lens and forgot to reset it to f/8. So we finished the session shooting at f/1.4. Despite these missteps, the photos came out pretty good.

Professional photographers make mistakes just like amateurs. But a pro keeps at it until he or she gets good results and then analyzes what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. Fedja and I kept at it until we got some images we both liked. I also learned that using a wide aperture for a studio portrait isn’t necessarily a bad idea. The session got me excited to start shooting again. Shortly afterward, I noticed that a department store liquidator was selling some mannequins for $100. I had been looking for one to practice my lighting setups for about a year, but they get snapped up quickly and good ones sell for considerably more. I bought one, named her Charlotte, and got to work on a project using colored gels.

I have used gels in the past to add a hint of color to a subject’s hair or a splash of color on the background. But I did not get the kind of results I see when Lindsay Adler uses them for her fashion shoots, or Alexis Cuarezma uses them for sports and dance. I took Adler’s online course, “The Magic of Gels,” and decided to try again using Charlotte. I experimented using gels with various modifiers and noticed that diffusion modifiers make the colors less saturated and softened the edges. Hard modifiers, like reflectors, helped to saturate the colors. I played with setting the camera’s white balance to tungsten, which turns the light coming from the strobes to blue. That reduced the number of gels I needed but it also threw the color too broadly. I wanted to use lights and gels to mimick a harelquin. That is, to throw color in very specific quadrants with distinct borders. I got partway there through light placement. But I struggled to get a distinct line from the blue gel, a technique Adler showed in her course. I knew that the gel had to be as close as possible to the subject without being in the frame. So I used a C stand to hold the gel in place, but the edge still was too soft. So I pulled back the light to create a harder edge and added a 10-degree grid to keep the light from scattering too much. It worked.

While it’s fun and entertaining to work with gels, the real value of this exercise was in refining my understanding of how light works, and how to control it to achieve the effects I want. Sometimes that means using modifiers, or moving lights. Sometimes that means moving my feet or changing lenses and angles of view. Sometimes it means moving the model, or directing the model through conversation to elicit a certain look.

Photography is infinitely complex. I hope to be at this for a very long time to come. You’re welcome to join me at your earliest convenience.

The days are getting lighter

Janell Pepper takes a break a the 2018 Wisconsin State Dancesport Competition in Milwaukee.

“You’re either sucking air, or you’re sucking dirt. If you’re sucking dirt, you can’t complain, and if you’re sucking air, you’ve got nothing to complain about. — Robert Kunkel Jr., a Vietnam veteran who works with wounded soldiers.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything. I had rotator cuff surgery on Dec. 31. Recovery is going well, but slowly, as expected. I have been restricted in my use of my right hand. I never realized how cameras were designed for right-handed people until I could not use mine. But I have not let this “time off” go to waste. I have been studying photographic methods on YouTube and practicing my editing skills, slowly and painstakingly, on Capture One. I attended ImagingUSA, a three-day virtual convention put on by Professional Photographers of America, a group I joined last fall. I recently joined Praxis Photo Arts Center, a nonprofit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I entered one of its juried contests, this one on portraiture. I also will submit a photo for its members’ salon showing. And I recently joined the Pas de Deux dance photography group on Facebook. In short, I am making progress where I can.

The days are getting longer, which is bolstering my optimism and awakening my creative spirits. I am eager to get back to making photographs.

I just had my first physical therapy session and I can start using my right hand to type again, with minimal pain and accommodations (it takes practice to type while wearing a sling). I’m back on the dance floor, taking mostly private lessons and practicing my ballroom routines solo so that I don’t lose too much over my hiatus. And I am attending jujutsu classes once a week to observe from the sidelines and contribute where I can be helpful.

Skills have a shelf life; they require exercise, or they deteriorate and can be lost.

I am reaching out to some dance competitions to offer a relatively new service: Fine art portraits of the competitors. Every comp has floor photographers who shoot away furiously at everyone to create keepsakes for the competitors. My aim is to create wall art and storybooks dancers can use to answer the question: Why do you spend so much time and money on this activity? I will be contacting dance studios in Minnesota to offer this service as well. I also am trying to gauge interest in my services as a “personal photographer.” The idea is similar to a wedding photographer. That is, I would document an individual dancer’s rehearsals, dressing, performance and post-dance festivities for a fee. I would offer this service on a per-style, per-day or per-event basis, with the fees adjusting accordingly.

I’ve been noticing senior portrait advertisements on Facebook and Instagram recently. There are many photographers working in this space, with a wide variety of skills and prices. I have enjoyed making senior portraits myself and would love to do more as soon as my arm allows, probably in April.

If you’re interested in hiring me to make portraits, document events or create custom artwork for your home or office, please give me a buzz at 612-655-5020 or dan-browning@comcast.net.

Above all, stay well.

Exhale!

If you’re reading this, you made it to the end of 2020. The days already are growing longer. It’s time to drop tired habits and try on new resolutions for fitness, for relationships, for work habits and more. Most of these new efforts will fall away, but that’s fine. Most mutations die off for a reason. Positive change is usually incremental. Sure, black swans occasionally reorder our worldview, but they are rare, by definition.

I am closing out the year by stepping back and taking stock. I am getting surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff. The recovery period is generally about five months. I plan to do better than that, but it won’t be quick. In the meantime, it will be impossible to very difficult to sling a camera. So I will do some reading and studying and solo dance practice to keep active. I’ve been through this before. (Jujutsu and Aikido can be hard on the joints, especially when you do things wrong.)

In the past few weeks, I have gone driving around looking for subjects to photograph. I have not found that many. It has mostly been overcast and a bit cold and I just wasn’t into it. I realized I just wanted to get back into the studio or out on locatoin working with a live model. Self-portraits and still life are good ways to practice lighting but they only go so far. I crave human interaction. Alas, the pandemic and pre-operation quarantine have rendered that impossible for now.

In the meantime, I have entered a couple of photography contests. I don’t put much stock in such things, but they provide a good opportunity to learn. My work using Capture One software to process a problematic portrait was a finalist. But more important, it forced me to learn a great deal about the tools in that software. This week, I entered a contest sponsored by Adorama, a New York City camera emporium, emphasizing bokeh. That’s the phoneticization of a Japanese term meaning “blur.” It often refers to the balls of out-of-focus light seen in holiday photos shot with a wide aperture. But it actually can refer to any blurring that takes place outside of the field-of-focus in a particular lens. Blur can be caused by other factors, including camera shake, missed focus, movement of the subject, and Gaussian blur. Bokeh (pronounced bo-kuh) is the inherent blur of a particular lens and how it is used. For a more in-depth explanation, check out this video by Matt Granger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rQs6o-iHH8

Because I can’t really do much new work, I decided to go back through old photographs to find five images illustrating bokeh for the contest. Some are a couple of years old, so I re-edited them using Capture One. I love the way this program works, and I believe it substantially enhanced the images. I narrowed it down to 10 images and my daughter helped me pick five. Since I submitted them, I have seen many other fine shots illustrating bokeh on Instagram and in various Facebook groups. There are so many good photographers; I have no expectation of winning anything. But that doesn’t matter. I feel like I already have won.

In the process of preparing for the contest I researched the meaning of bokeh and refined my understanding somewhat. I opened old photographs and breathed new life into them simply by reprocessing them with the benefit of a few years of experience. I saw particular qualities that characterize my work. And I saw things that need improvement. I hope to emerge from physical therapy and the pandemic a stronger photographer and a better human being. That’s my mission statement for 2021.

What will you do with the new year? I hope you will consider letting me photograph your journey once it’s safe to do so again.

Happy New Year!

WYSIWYG, or maybe not.

In photography, what you see is what you get, right? Not necessarily. Sure, photojournalism should be a trustworthy reflection of what was in front of the camera when the shutter released. But other forms of photography are free to roam. Portrait photographers remove pimples and smooth skin all the time. Some respected commercial photographers think nothing of using Photoshop for a minor tummy tuck, face lift or eye widening. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is getting into the act, enabling even amateurs to “enhance” facial features at the touch of a button. Landscape photographers use software to cut through fog, enhance details and alter color schemes. With AI, even beginners can seamlessly replace dull skies with stormy ones.

The power of today’s photo processing software can render an idealized, unreal world. Some of that is wonderful. Check out the work of Brook Shaden. But that’s not photography, strictly speaking. It’s photo illustration, sometimes just called fine art photography. Where does one draw the line between illustration and accuracy? The answer is subjective. If you hire a photographer, you might want to be clear about how much “retouching” you want or expect.

Take a look at the image above. I did minor editing to it to highlight the flag and I corrected some lens distortions. It’s an accurate representation of what I saw. The human eye can discern far more than the best cameras. So “correcting” for technological shortcomings seems fair, or even desireable. Yet digital cameras also sharpen skin details beyond what we see when we look at a loved one. So softening the skin or subtly standardizing color variations seems reasonable as well. The trick is not to overdo it. Hyper-focused images of landscapes abound, as do hyper-polished faces that make people look like mannequins. If that’s what you’re after, I’m not your photographer.

I believe our wrinkles, scars and gray hairs show character. My goal as a portrait photographer is to see beyond the mask we each present to the world. What lies beneath is far more interesting.

Ten thousand reasons

Ward Melenich, my jujutsu instructor, is fond of saying that there 10,000 reasons not to go to class, and all of them are good. There just as many bad reasons, also known as excuses. But good reasons or not, they have the same effect of stifling your development. You don’t progress if you don’t put in the work. Which brings me to now: Photography in a pandemic.

Shane Cleminson, an Indiana photographer, got a lot of news coverage for a personal project of making portraits of people on their front porches. Adorama and V-Flat World have a running series in New York City called Street Studio. A series of top-notch photographers have done outstanding work shooting passersby for a quick portrait or headshot. My favorite in the series featured the work of Lindsay Adler. These folks didn’t get good by staying in bed waiting for the light to improve, the rain to stop, or the pandemic to subside. When going outside was too dangerous they continued working in their studio, their home or their yards.

Which brings me to my latest self-assignment: Shoot a Christmas still life. I did not have a tree when I started, so I looked around my basement and found a wooden Christmas carousel that my sister Diana Wright gave me many years ago. It’s powered by the heat of six candles. I needed more props so I dug out an old nutcracker that my sister Patti Maffei gave me years ago, and a straw reindeer whose provenance I no longer recall. I also added some tiny Christmas lights that I picked up for a portrait last year. My first run at this still life was only partly successful. I got the lighting correct. I was able to show movement in the carousel. But I couldn’t do both satisfactorily. I posted my best shot on FaceBook and moved on. But it ate me.

I realized that I needed sufficient ambient light and a long shutter speed to show movement. The strobes, I knew, would both light the scene and freeze the movement. I used second-curtain flash so the blur would occur before the freezing of the subject. This is the technique automobile photographers use to blur car headlights before they freeze the car with the strobes. The problem I had was that my ambient lighting in the room sucked. So I looked into buying Dedolight “hotlights” as recommended by Daniel Norton, a photography educator who works closely with Adorama in New York. The Dedolights were too pricey for me. I looked around and bought a Wuben T045R flashlight, a 1,000 lumen light that claims it’s good for photography. And it was!

I used the flashlight as a key light on the carousel. I used a Profoto B10 with a grid and CTO (orange) gel to illuminate the nutcracker. I used a B10 with a 10-degree grid and an orange gel to add a rim light on the reindeer. And I used a Profoto A1X speedlight with a 10-degree grid and orange gel to add a rim light to the nutcracker. I experimented relentlessly on the shutter speed and aperture before settling on 1/6 of a second to get the right amount of movement blur. I used a Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 lens at f/3.5 to get sufficient sharpness while allowing the tiny Christmas lights in the background to provide lens blur.

All of this took about six hours of work over two separate days. Was it worth it? Absolutely. The photo itself is nothing special. But I learned a great deal about making due with what I can afford, about balancing light colors, about motion blur and gaussian blur, and about the value of persistence.

If you hire me, you can expect the same work ethic and drive to excellence. Together we will make memories, not excuses.

Contact me so we can get to work.

Kung Fu

A mural by Guido van Helten in Mankato, Minnesota, catches the cooperative spirit of this college town and agricultural community.

The TV series Kung Fu first aired in 1972, my junior year of high school. It appealed to my adolescent brain with its fortune-cookie philosophy and simple plots where good triumphs over evil. The late actor David Carridine played the role of Kwai Chang Cain, a mixed-race orphan raised by Shaolin monks who fled to America after killing a Chinese prince responsible for killing his master. Cain goes looking for his half-brother while dodging bounty hunters and stepping up to defend the helpless from all sorts of bullies along the way. One episode stands out in my memory. Cain was trapped and held in some sort of a pit. Seeing no way out, he sat down, drew himself into a lotus position, and began meditating.

That’s where I am at the moment. And that’s where you are, too. I was preparing for a couple of dance events when two things got in the way: The resurging coronavirus and a new tear of my right rotator cuff. The virus prompted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to tighten restrictions on public activities for at least a month. Out went my dance plans. But it coincided with me tearing open my rotator cuff. It’s been coming for a long time. I was told in 2013 that I needed to have it repaired, but my wife was deteriorating with frontotemporal dementia and ALS and I had to be ready to lift her out of the tub. So I had some work done on my shoulder and my right biceps, which I had severed doing some jujjutsu, but I avoided the rotator cuff repair because it requires a long and very restricted recovery period. Everything healed nicely and I got by with minor pain over the years until about 10 months ago, when I tore it again moving furniture. Then a couple of weeks ago I tore it some more with a sudden movement. It was ready to go. So now I am facing the big repair.

The new coronavirus restrictions caused me to lose an upcoming portraiture job. My clients got too nervous about exposure and made the right decision, I believe, to cancel. I realized that once I had the rotator cuff surgery I would not be able to make any photographs for at least a couple of months. During recovery, I won’t be able to extend my right arm, and holding a camera is out of the question. So I decided to run down to Mankato, Minnesota, about 90 minutes south of the Twin Cities, to see the finished work of muralist Guido van Helten. I had written a story about him for the Star Tribune when he began painting a mural on some grain silos at the edge of town. I wanted to photograph the silos while I could still do some work, and I thought sunset might be a perfect time for it.

I placed my camera on a tripod with a 70-200mm zoom lens. Even reaching for the shutter button hurt my shoulder. In fact, even typing this blog entry causes some discomfort. As you can see, I am in a kind of pit with no immediate way out.

So the only thing to do is step back and look inward for awhile. I’m told it will take about five months to get back to full strength after the surgery. I will spend my time studying technique and the works of artists I admire (photographers, painters, dancers). Maybe when I emerge the coronavirus will be less of a threat. At least two vaccines are on the precipice of release and the early reports indicate they are highly effective and safe. And with the presidential election finally behind us, our nation also has an opportunity to restore political order and make reforms.

Breathe in. Breathe out. A new dawn is coming.

You can’t beat print

When I started out in photography my dad built me a darkroom. I would spend hours processing black and white film and making prints. In my spare time I would study Ansel Adams’ zone system for exposures and printing and I would read and re-read the Ilford Manual of Photography and the 11-volume Time Life photogaphy series. I lugged those books around with me for years until all of my photography equipment was stolen out of my apartment in 1988. I had no renter’s insurance and could not replace the equipment. I sold my photography books and darkroom equipment and moved on with my life until the tragic loss of my wife to frontotemporal dementia and ALS in 2014. I used a bit of her life insurance proceeds to restock my photo equipment and rekindled my love for photography.

For the past five years I have been photographing ballroom dancers and giving away the digital images. Now that I have enough experience to justify charging for my work, I have turned professional. Initially, I did not want to deal with sales taxes so I decided to sell just digital images with the proviso that if my clients wanted prints, I would help them get them done on their own through a professional lab. Nearly every professional photographer I’ve come across has said this is a bad idea. Prints have much greater impact, they said, and prints will make the difference between red and black ink. After all, photographic equipment, insurance, software, training and self-employment taxes are expensive.

I decided to give it a try. I got a 16x24” print made at White House Custom Color in Eagan, Minnesota. The first version was too dark and the lustre coating on the paper I ordered reflected too much light, making it hard to read. I consulted with the lab and they recommended fine art paper. I chose Hahnemuhle Torchon paper, which is similar to parchment or watercolor paper. The results were striking and well worth the cost for a 16x24” print. Now I want to make many more prints. One of my clients just ordered a whole collection of prints from a recent family portrait and headshot session. Most were 4x6s and 5x7s. But they also wanted two 12x12s of their two sons. I convinced them to go with the Torchon paper mounted on 3/4” black “standout” backing. They were thrilled with the results, as was I. Digital images are great but they just can’t elicit the kind of reaction I saw on their faces when they saw the printed versions.

Preparing an image for printing takes more work than preparing one for the web. You should expect to pay a premium for the time it takes. Professional Photographers of America, a non-profit trade association, says that a photographer should charge $51 for a regular 8x10” print just to cover their costs. Obviously, that rate changes depending on the paper and mountings used. Typical markups are 2.5 to 3 times the wholesale cost of the print. My 16x24” demonstration print on Torchon paper with simple styrene backing cost me $60 and should be priced at $171 (using 2.85 as a commonly used markup rate). These are images you will be proud to display on your wall; you won’t want them hidden away in an album you see every 10 years. They have power and will command attention from all who see them.

Do you have space on your wall for a work of art? Email me or call me to book a session.

I’m offering a 20% discount on any session begun before Nov. 30.