Ken Smith
Why yes Ma'am - it folds
A local portrait studio photographer in my town does landscapes via large format. He has a brisk business in portraits with folks even coming from Nord Dakota for his work. While he did my oldest daughter's senior photos via medium format digital, his landscapes are old school with a view camera, BW, and a total darkroom work.
After we got through reviewing my daughter's photo results, I was talking to him about his landscapes - just a ton of old school information in his head. He could go through each of his landscape offerings and tell me how he metered each scene, where he dodged and burned at the enlarger, which developer he used, etc. Showed me his field notebook which had a rough sketch of each scene with recorded spot meter readings jotted down for each area of the scene, etc.
While landscapes may sound like a cop out for some - we live in Montana within 30 minutes of the Rocky Mountain front. Needless to say the views here are just spectacular with the wild weather often intensifing every eyeful. Montanas are in love with our mountains, plains, rivers, cattle ranches that run for miles, and the state's vast rugged beauty. It's why we refer to our state as "The Last Best Place" and "Big Sky Country." And yes - we love having its landscapes and views of its wildlife on our walls - at home and at work.
On the color side of things, the custodian at the school where my wife works is
a serious wildlife photographer. He spends his time off in Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, or perhaps camped deep within the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, on the prarie, and often in a host of other Montana areas. Yes they are in color, but sometimes only color can convey a back country mountain pass covered in wildflowers, the subtle color nuances that light brings out on the shoulders of a grizzly, a herd of elk, big horn sheep, moose, or a West Slope cutthroat as it navigate jumping up small waterfalls to get to spawning grounds. His photos grace numerous state magazines. They also grace the walls of my home. They depict the natural richness of the state we live in. Black and white would not do a lot of this justice.
After we got through reviewing my daughter's photo results, I was talking to him about his landscapes - just a ton of old school information in his head. He could go through each of his landscape offerings and tell me how he metered each scene, where he dodged and burned at the enlarger, which developer he used, etc. Showed me his field notebook which had a rough sketch of each scene with recorded spot meter readings jotted down for each area of the scene, etc.
While landscapes may sound like a cop out for some - we live in Montana within 30 minutes of the Rocky Mountain front. Needless to say the views here are just spectacular with the wild weather often intensifing every eyeful. Montanas are in love with our mountains, plains, rivers, cattle ranches that run for miles, and the state's vast rugged beauty. It's why we refer to our state as "The Last Best Place" and "Big Sky Country." And yes - we love having its landscapes and views of its wildlife on our walls - at home and at work.
On the color side of things, the custodian at the school where my wife works is
a serious wildlife photographer. He spends his time off in Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, or perhaps camped deep within the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, on the prarie, and often in a host of other Montana areas. Yes they are in color, but sometimes only color can convey a back country mountain pass covered in wildflowers, the subtle color nuances that light brings out on the shoulders of a grizzly, a herd of elk, big horn sheep, moose, or a West Slope cutthroat as it navigate jumping up small waterfalls to get to spawning grounds. His photos grace numerous state magazines. They also grace the walls of my home. They depict the natural richness of the state we live in. Black and white would not do a lot of this justice.
