Daily Archives: April 25, 2013

Yesterday, today and probably tomorrow I have been and will be cleaning my office, a task something like wrestling a 20 foot Python!!  It’s shocking how much you accumulate when you refuse to throw anything away for over 30 years!!!  It has also been a flood of memories of a 43 year career as a photographer!  This little is by no means exhaustive, just what I’ve uncovered under layers of stacked books, papers, and nylon, velcro and zippers!  This is not bragging, it’s and attempt to say Thank You Father for having provided me such a rich life filled with wonderful friends, great experiences and tremendous joy!  So here are some of the great memories!

 

1.  America From 500 Feet – the single greatest photographic achievement of my career, and the best memories ever of a time for a father and son to discover America and each other over our 14 month journey!  It was also the most successful photographic venture of my life!

 

2.  Outdoor Photographer Magazine – I wrote articles for this magazine on a number of occasions and it brought me one of my most treasured friends in photography, Rob Sheppard.  In this Annual Landscape issue I was featured as one of Masters of Landscape photography, a very appreciated honor.

 

3.  The Nature of America – My first book done along with David Middleton, a runaway best seller, and a chance to work with the very finest nature shooters of our time.  It was an honor to be in such a project with such incredible shooters!  The biggest bonus was to become a life long friend with David!  My only regret is that I did not know Moose Peterson very well back then, if I did such a book today, he would definitely be included along with Jim Begley, Chuck Summers, Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowski, R.C. Concepcion and many others!!!!!

 

4.  Color Transparencies (slides for you youngsters) –  I have over 25,000 in my file cabinets  spanning a life time of photography from virtually every National Park, many foreign countries including Africa and the Galapagos Islands.  Sadly, now that digital has matured, none of them can even hope to match the quality of what we are producing today.  That number may seem small and it is compared to some other people’s archives, keep in mind I’ve thrown at least 35,000 away over the last 30 years!

 

5.  A Time It Was by Bill Eppridge – One of our greatest photojournalists and a dear friend.  If you are not steeped in photojournalism history, Bill shot the very famous, and Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a dying Bobby Kennedy.  Bill was among the finest shooters I’ve ever known, and his note to me in this book is one of my most treasured assurances of friendship with another photographer!

 

6.  An Original First Edition Copy of Deliverance by James Dickey – A gift from Sam Garcia, one of the best photographers I’ve ever known and a man who’s work has inspired me for over three decades.  You may already know that actor Ned Beatty is my first cousin, my father’s, sister’s son.  I have since forgiven him for this role!!!

 

7.  Nikon World Magazine – One of my most coveted covers from America From 500 Feet II done with my dear friend Mark Kettenhofen.  I’v e always been a fan of Nikon World magazine and I’m proud to have been featured as a photographer twice in between it’s covers.

 

8.  It’s a Jesus Thing by Scott Kelby – This book is the culmination,  for me of a great friendship with Scott Kelby, the most talented person I’ve ever known.  Scott is not only a world class shooter in many fields, a runaway best selling author, exceptional presenter, but most of all has been a great brother in Christ for me!  He has opened my world up more than any other friend, and has allowed me to become a member of his great extended family of exceptionally talented people.

 

9.  NASA Shuttle Launch Notebook –  I have 5 sets of these notebooks one from each of the 5 shuttle launches I was privileged to shoot and experience along side my great friends, Bill Pekala, Ron Tanawaki, and Mark Suban!

 

10.  A Year in the Cumberland Gap by Chuck Summers – A book does not have to be big to have impact, and Chuck’s book on Cumberland Gap, one of our lesser known National Parks, is an extraordinary volume.  Chuck as you read yesterday is a wonderful friend, and his work is truly stunning.

 

11.  One of a handful of clip on credentials from NASA – These credentials are not only hard to get, I treasure them for the memories!

 

12.   Great Photography Workshop –  When I pitched this book to Northword press the working tittle was Getting Serious About Nature Photography, they changed the title to Bill Fortney’s Great Photography Workshop. I’ve always loved the book, and hated that tittle!!!  It was the Editors Choice Winner the year it was published.

 

13.  The Datebook that accompanied America From 500 Feet – What a thrill it was to spend one year re-living Wes’ and my great adventure in our own datebook!!!

 

14.  A Touch of His Joy by Dr. Charles Stanley –  Charles is one of my closest friends and I admire his work for our Lord more than I can express.  He has been one of my spirituyal hero’s. You can imagine the shock and joy when he sent me this book and I read the Dedication; “To Bill Fortney, one of my favorite photographers whose friendship has brought me a great deal of joy.” Wow, still can’t believer that one…..

 

15.  Nikon and You – Employee Manual – Reminds me of the almost 11 great years of working  with  the greatest professional support team in the world of photography!

 

16.  Cover of Ultra Flight Magazine – I’ve been featured flyinfg my ultralights twice on the covers of Ultra Flight magazine.  I wrote numerous articles about flying light aircraft, and have made two great firends in Jim Byers and Roy Beisswenger!

 

17.  My favorite zoom, the Nikkor 50-135 f 3.5 manual focus zoom – This has been one of my favorite zoom lenses through out much of my career, many of my America From 500 Feet images were made with it!  It still is tack sharp today even on the D800!!!

 

18.  A couple of strips of negatives  – I have shot thousands upon thousands of black and white rolls of film.  Processed and made thousands of prints in my own darkrooms.  I find myself now in the digital era drawn back to this lovely way of making images!

 

19.  Batteries (the power) –  Nothing happens without power, and as much as I’ve depended on hundreds of these little guys,  I’ve been completley dependent on the power from my Heavenly Father!

 

20.  Home – My favorite destination after these last incredible 43 years.  I’ve driven well over 1,000,000. miles, flown at least half that many, and been gone over 200 nights a year for the last 25 years.  This is most beautiful thing I ever see, my drive way at the end of yet another long trip!!!

 

Once again, thank you Father for giving me such a blessed life!

 

Blessings to all of you,

 

the pilgrim

 

I read a great article from a photographer nameed Patrick La Rogue and he made some very valid points about single focal length and zoom lenses.  Here is part of his article wheich I found very interesting!!

 

“I’ll put my cards on the table right away: I’ve developed a slightly tumultuous relationship with zooms. They’re very useful tools but I’ve come to realize they also tend to drive me into what I’d call visual laziness. When I decided to jump to the X system as my one and only kit, I also embraced the fact that I’d be shooting with nothing but primes. In fact much of that decision was coloured by my experience with the X100’s fixed focal length and the way it affected my shooting reflexes. Not that this was anything new: I used Nikon primes as well. But committing to a single focal length for extended periods of time wasn’t something I’d really done before. When I shoot a prime I need to move — Obviously; I need to walk in order to alter my distance to the subject; and while I walk my brain works, and when my brain works it notices its surroundings and finds details or angles I often would’ve overlooked otherwise. But with a zoom… No matter how much I try, it’s always much too easy to fall back to those old reflexes. Twist in, twist out. Maybe if we stopped calling them zooms in the first place. That word doesn’t do justice to what’s going on optically. Maybe instead we could describe them as multi-focal lenses. There’s definitely something pretty fantastic about having the equivalent of 8 primes on a single lens… IF you use it as such. IF you understand how to use each individual focal length in the right context, and how each one changes the entire aspect of an image way beyond making things look nearer or closer. Compression, distortion, spatial perception. Of course you can also use it to get a closer shot of that mountain way out there; but perhaps if you actually GO to the mountain, something amazing will happen along the way. Right, so where was I? Ah yes: no zooms for me. Huh…”  He goes on to talk about a zoom he really likes but still plans to use  it  as a series of single focal length lenses!

 

His point is dead on.  We can in fact get “visual laziness”!  I think making ourselves use either single focal length lenses or at least pick just one focal length on our zooms,  and move to try and make it work will improve our photographs and our vision as well!  Another thing we need to be very careful about is think that the effect of cropping factors making lenses something they are not.  Example a 6omm lens is a 60mm lens, but when used on a 1.5 crop factor sensor it “crops” to the size of an image made with a 90mm (60 X 1.5 = 90), However it is still a 60mm lens!!!  The reason I say this is that traditionally 85mm to 105 mm are considered the best portrait lenses, because of the perspective with which they show the human face.  So even thought a 60mm lens on a 1.5 crop sensor crops like a 90, it does not have the perspective of a 90!  This is why to be an effective photographer you need to learn what the perspective is at various focal lengths even if you use zooms!

 

Food for thought!  And thanks Patrick, for a good point we all need to think about!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim