{"id":3562,"date":"2013-01-07T00:17:37","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T07:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/picturejournals.com\/?page_id=3562"},"modified":"2020-05-07T17:03:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T00:03:34","slug":"about-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/picturejournals.com\/?page_id=3562","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Welcome! And thanks for visiting. Picture Journals, this blog, has morphed many times since it’s inception back in 2007. At first, it was the beginnings of a family photo album<\/a>. Many a times featuring my first born<\/a>, then later, my second born. It featured the places I took them to explore<\/a> and other times right here at home.\u00c2\u00a0Then it was an online portfolio. I even did a stint with sports photography<\/a>. I took friends family pictures<\/a>. I explored with black & white photography<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0When I began shooting professionally, I acquired a professional DSLR and some very fine lenses. Then my lust exploded beyond just family pictures, I began adding interesting photos of places<\/a> I’ve been. A few more years passed and my taste for photography had changed again. I became infatuated with film and thus began an explosion in film photography. I started with my first foray using an Olympus OM-2<\/a> I purchased online which came with a 28mm lens<\/a> and two rolls of Kodak Superia. An immediate profound excitement came over me and experimenting with film blossomed.<\/p>\n

I once took a workshop with a very well known wedding photographer who uses a Contax 645 and Fujicolor Pro 400H film. I really wanted to emulate the kind of color this type of film makes. Most of my professional work can be found in my website at desibaytan.com<\/a>. There I mainly use medium format with the aforementioned combination of camera and film. But here at Picture Journals, I wanted to keep things simple and because it’s a self fulfilling passion, I shoot tons of film and take them to any local one hour labs that still process film. I do this for three reasons. First, I like the challenge. Most labs don’t have the same quality control as the professional ones I use for my work. So I get back images on CD that, for lack of a better word, aren’t spectacular. So in Photoshop I would enhance them one by one. Sometimes, I would get only one successful frame. Other times, it’s raining cats and dogs. Second, I don’t care much for high resolution. I just want my images to come out so drug store labs, Sams Club, Target, Walgreens, whoever still takes film will do. Third, when I share my images, I intend to do this as a way to teach. There aren’t a lot of labs out there any more so being choosy is not an option. It’s great to see images on the Internet only to find nothing on how it was created. I don’t talk about how to see, that’s up to you. But if you are interested in photography, there is no better way to learn than using a manual camera, some film and a hand held meter.<\/div>\n
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As for subjects, I like to photograph people and places<\/a>. But more so, I look for interesting light<\/a>. Notice I didn’t say interesting things. That’s because the subject matter doesn’t always matter. It could be nature, architecture, or the most mundane<\/a>. Henry Wessel<\/a> said it best in an interview with KQED, “In a still photograph you basically have two variables, where you stand and when you press the shutter. That’s all you have.”<\/div>\n
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