About Me

I’ve been behind one sort of a camera or another since receiving my first SLR in 1976. It was a Minolta XG1, and I must have shot 10,000 B&W pictures by the time I was out of high-school. My favorite lens was a 28-80 zoom macro, which I eventually abused to the point of failure by taking it on every one of my weekend rock-climbing, whitewater canoeing, bicycling and camping trips.

I occasionally shot color slide film, (mostly Kodachrome) but I found B&W both more affordable and an easier medium through which to learn photography. I processed my own film (mostly Tri-x and Plus-X) in my bathroom at home, and had a high-school friend with a full darkroom where I printed. Consequently, I have a lot of negatives, but not many prints from that peri0d. Even to this day, I still feel more comfortable composing photographs than I do printing them. 

In 1983 I moved out west. For a few years I was too poor to afford even B&W photography, but I kept my camera and my interest in photography.

In 1987 I began school at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. There I took a “core” program which included a photography component throughout the year-long class. It was lead by (now retired) Paul Sparks, an iconoclastic artist with numerous talents, including art photography, in which he has a MA from San Francisco State University. We shot 5-10 rolls of T-Max a week, developed our film, made contact sheets of all of them and work prints of the selects. I was delighted to develop my “black and white eye” again.

In his evaluation of my performance in the class, (remember that this is Evergreen, where we got evaluations rather than grades), Paul gave some insightful criticism about my photography and even speculated on my future as a photographer. I have found that I return to this one evaluation, out of all the ones I received, again to again and again over the years. Here is what he wrote:

“[PhotoTyro] has done well in learning basic camera work and exposure, printing and developing. His concern for craftsmanship is average. He is starting to see and be sensitive to form but needs more work at this and in connecting his work to ideas or a personal point of view. I have the sense that if Jason doesn’t see the direct application of a new idea or direction, he does the work perfunctorily or is so conservative in his ability to suspend judgment that he has to have everything proved to him before he will take the risk to try it seriously. What I’m saying is that he needs to take more risk and experiment with his image making in order to test his abilities. He will probably do well in photo journalism making strong images. He might even be able to do the “artistic thing” well if he were ever driven that way – if he will take the time to go beyond the conventional. He does take responsibility for his own learning.”

It turns out that I didn’t do well in the photo journalism thing. The following year I had an independent contract, working with Paul, in which I attempted to write and photograph in a photo journalism style. It was not really much fun, and I lost my interest in that type of photography for good. (well, at least so far…)

During a summer break in school, I managed to scrape enough money together for about 50 roles of Fujichrome 50 and processing mailers, which I shot during a 50 day hike across Oregon on the Pacific Crest Trail. That was in 1990. I shot very little after that for the next ten years. During that time, the digital revolution hit.

In 2000,I went with my partner Kathy to Italy. I had purchased a Kodak DC4800 digital camera with a zoom lens. I shot at the highest resolution it offered (3.1 MP in JPEG). I also took two extra batteries, a battery charger and 4 Compact Flash cards totaling 1.5 gigs. Using the wrist strap that came with the camera, I almost permanently attached that camera to my right hand. We would walk around Italy, and I would snap pictures almost without thinking. I did not take a flash or a tripod, and so ended up with some blurred photos, but not nearly as many as I would have expected. In the three weeks we were there I took about 1,800 shots–enough to completely fill all the media I brought.

The fun I had both in taking the shots and in processing the photographs at home, convinced me that I was ready to invest in a digital SLR and not be wasting my money on a passing interest. (I’m prone to that sort of thing.) What I discovered in digital SLR photography was that I had complete control, a much quicker learning curve since I could respond to exposure or composition problems immediately, and that once I invested in the “darkroom equipment” (a fast computer, Adobe Photoshop CS2, a high-resolution monitor and a Wacom tablet) I was freed from the reoccurring expenses that I so loathed from the traditional film processing and printing process.

I decided on a Nikon D70. I had always loved Nikon cameras, though I had never owned one. (My friend in high-school–the one with the darkroom–shot a Nikon F3, which I greatly envied.) Between B&H Photo online and Glazer’s Camera in Seattle, I now own three Nikon bodies, the afore mentioned D70 (which I’ve converted to an infrared camera using a Life Pixel infrared hot mirror replacement filter), a D200, and a D3, over a dozen lenses, two tripods, three flashes, a bunch of studio lighting, a 17″ wide Epson {rp 3800 printer and many, many little things to numerous to list. (If it sounds like I have CAS–Camera Acquisition Syndrome–it’s because I do!)

I now shoot photos, read about photography, write about photography, think about photography, attend workshops or look at photographs daily. I briefly formed a photography club where I work (not enough fanatics there to make it work), and am looking to join a few local and Internet clubs to share my photographs for critique and idea sharing.

All this yet I still feel like I’m just beginning a lifelong journey of fun and expression. This blog will be a significant part of that journey.