About

My first camera in the mid 50’s was a Kodak Brownie that I cherished for a number of years. Seems funny that six decades later that I occasionally still shoot with a Brownie and certainly always use Black and White film. I ventured into digital photography for about four years, using a Canon 5D Mark II body and a number of L series lenses. Certainly nice equipment as digital goes, but I found myself forever unhappy with the looks of digital images. For me, just too precise and artificial looking. Even with advanced post-processing skills, I was never able to make my art look like it did with film. So about three years ago, I sold all my digital equipment and began to replace all of the film equipment I had loved in the past. My primary film camera is a Hasselblad 501CM, but it is often interchanged with an assortment of 35mm rangefinders (Olympus 35RC and 35SP). I also enjoy pinhole work (camera obscura) with both medium and large format pinhole cameras. My current large format film camera is an Intrepid Mk4, which is also ultralight for a 4x5 view camera. In recent years I gave up using the darkroom for both practical and environmental reasons. I scan my negatives with the Epson V750 flatbed scanner and print using the wonderful Epson R3000 printer. I am fortunate to live in the far western side of Michigan’s fabled Upper Peninsula, in a 100 year old stone Finnish farm house (Rauhallinen Farm), near both the Porcupine Mountains and Lake Superior. The farmhouse is nestled in the Gogebic Range, which sees some of the hardest and longest lasting winters in the United States-often equal to what you would expect to find in Alaska and the Arctic-seven months in duration most years. As winter provides black and white photographers with dreamlike light and contrast, it is my time of the year to make the majority of my favorite images. If you are reading this and shooting film yourself-I thank you for keeping our traditions alive and well.