Photography 

The Great Stress Reliever

After spending all week working, photography for us is the great get away. Most of our work is with landscapes. The wonderful thing is the endless picture taking possibilities right in your own area. Our daughter makes fun of us because we keep going back to a lot of the same areas to take photographs. She doesn't realize that the light is never the same twice and every once in a while that magic scene just pops up. Some days the clouds paint a wonderful back drop for picture taking which makes a scene that you visit all the time perfect. Once a person gets past the snapshot mentality and carefully composes a shot, you can for a short time become one with the scene. One must not forget that photography is an art that must be practiced. A good many of the great photographers spent many years limited to a certain area in order to get those great shots. Ansel Adams work is a fine example of this, he spent the better part of forty years photographing the same parks. Ask yourself how many thousands of negatives did he throw away that didn't measure up. We see only his work that knocks your socks off for good reason. I have gazed at hundreds of photographs that truly are excellent work, but very few affect me like that of Adam's work. They seem to reach into your mind and heart and grab them and not let go. 

Medium and large format lend themselves well to escaping the machine gun attitude a lot of people get from using a 35mm camera. Don't get me wrong, when shooting news or sporting events it is critical to be able to shoot fast. With the larger formats you don't have 24 to 36 shots on a roll of film so one automatically slows down mentally and carefully considers all possible shots before you mindlessly press the shutter repeatedly. Sandi and I will often visit a site without even taking our camera as sort of scouting mission. I have even taken my video camera and shot the whole area, return to the house pop the tape in the VCR and watch it over and over. This gives me a chance to study the different angles that are available and figure the where the best light will come from. When on these scouting missions we always have a compass with us, so we know where the sun will rise and set. Some of the best shots we get are the early morning ones. Take a look a some of our images to see what I mean.

As you will see looking throughout our website the cost of photography plays and important role in the type of equipment that we use. Since this is not the way we earn our living we don't need the most expensive camera equipment money can buy. We are extremely happy using second hand TLR's and the Kiev 88. If we happen to drop one of them while hiking through the woods it is not the end of the world.

After seeing the amazing difference 120mm film provides compared to 35mm I started to entertain the idea of large format. Purchasing one was outside of what the budget would allow and being a very good woodworker I decided to make one. I chose 8x10 since I don't have a 4x5 enlarger and I can contact print the 8x10's. Building the 8x10 has turned into a labor of love that has given me many hours of enjoyment just building it. I made the entire camera including the bellows and purchased a used Kodak Commercial Ektar 12" lens. Ansel Adams used this kind of lens for many of his famous pictures. Using the 8x10 camera is a totally different kind of photography. Setting up and taking just one picture may take as long as two hours. In that time you notice every little thing in your shot. After doing this several times you start to get a whole new respect for the great landscape photographers that have practiced this art of capturing an image on a piece of film. I am rapidly learning that to get that great shot, one must "feel" it as if you were part of the image. If this sounds crazy, you might want to ask yourself if you are merely taking snapshots! Don't get me wrong I don't get that magical shot very often but when it does happen and it appears on the paper it is truly an experience. 

I have done a fair amount of reading about photography and there certainly are enough opinions out there on what to shoot with and how. But as many of the authors like Ansel Adams, Roger Hicks and many others state, buy some film and practice. All things considered this advise has helped more than I know, since I have learned more from the poor shots than I have learned from the good ones. Keeping this in mind I put in orders at  B&H Photo & Video in New York on a regular basis. There prices are very good and the service is fantastic along with quick delivery. By the way I have no connection with them whatsoever, just another happy customer. I watched some of the so called deals on film on Ebay and shake my head when people pay more for outdated film than what they could buy fresh film for. 

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All photographs on this website copyrighted 1995-2005 to Phil McCourt or Sandi McCourt. They may not be reproduced in any form without their written consent. 

email: phil@philsan.com  

This site updated on August 29, 2005