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Jeff Guyer is a commercial/portrait photographer based in Atlanta, GA. Still an avid street photographer and film shooter, Jeff also launched a kids photography class three years ago, where rumor has it he learns more from the kids than they learn from him. Connect with him on Facebook and Twitter, or check out his work at Guyer Photography.

The Power of a Print

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I am constantly blown away by the power of what we do with light and the little black box that captures it. Each day, we arm ourselves with the latest and greatest cameras, lenses, speedlights, monolights, reflectors, tripods, and accessories. We create. When the gig is over we return to our computers with memory cards full of vision and inspiration. We download our creative triumphs. We back them up. We tweak them. We edit them. We retouch them. We post them. We share them. We email them to the client.

But when was the last time you printed one?

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Leaving the Camera at Home (You Can Do It…Really)

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I just read an article about a blogger who actually called 911 from a Toronto film festival, complaining about excessive cell phone use during a midnight press screening. Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net says he called the police because there was too much texting and emailing going on in the theater and that the theater management refused to do anything about it. Yes. You read that correctly. An allegedly sane person called 911 to complain about phones lighting up in a movie theater.

I’m going to walk away for a few minutes and let that sink in.

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Learning to Critique

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Pop quiz– How many times in an average day do you come across a photo on-line, put there by a photographer seeking critique, comments, suggestions, opinions, or input? Actually, it’s not a fair question. If your day is anything like mine, you lose track by lunch time. Between Flickr, 500px, my students, and the many photography-related pages I follow on Facebook, there are just too many to count. Despite the huge count (or maybe because of it) I find two things that resonate with me about these posts. The first– based on their reactions– is that most people aren’t really looking for an honest critique. They are looking for validation. The second thing that jumps out at me is that most people simply do not know how to give a proper critique.

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Keeping Your Eyes Open

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Remember when I wrote about Quintessential Moments? It focused on benchmark or definitive moments in our growth as photographers. Maybe it was a photograph where a new concept fell perfectly into place. Maybe it was an image that had a profound impact on you– or someone else. One thing that I mentioned in passing at the end of the article was that you can’t force these moments. You can’t stack the deck and artificially create a defining moment.

I should have taken my own advice this past weekend.

Dragon*Con once again came to town, and with it came its annual parade. I have a pretty healthy comic book and sci-fi nerd streak in me, so it’s always a good time wandering around with my camera, getting fun shots of people with perhaps…well, let’s just say they take their love for these characters way more seriously I do. Way, WAY more seriously. And come on– who doesn’t love a parade?

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Crop vs. Full Frame: Excuse Me While I Rant

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Consider this– Every significant photo in the history of the medium was taken with a camera less technologically advanced than the one sitting in your camera bag right now. Every culturally iconic image. Sports. Fashion. War. Politics. The list goes on. Regardless of whether they were shot digitally or on film, the cameras with which they were taken are all yesterday’s news, especially when compared side-by-side with the current selection of DSLRs

Why do I bring this up?

Our story begins with an email a while back that went like this: “Dear Jeff: It was a pleasure speaking with you on the phone today about our current job opening for a photographer. We’ve reviewed your website and portfolio, and we love what we see. We are very excited about the prospect of working together. I do have one question, though. You mentioned on the phone that you shoot with the Nikon D300. Is that a full frame camera? I’m asking because having a full frame camera is a requirement for this job….”

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Quintessential Moments

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Oddly enough (or embarrassingly enough) it was actually a conversation in a movie that got me thinking about this topic recently.

“There are several quintessential moments in a man’s life– losing his virginity, getting married, becoming a father, and having the right girl smile at you.”

While we can endlessly debate what the quintessential moments in life are (as well as the philosophical merits of 1985’s “St. Elmo’s Fire), I think we can all agree that we have them. They are moments that define us. Benchmark moments along our timeline (NOT the Facebook kind) where we look back and see how something important about us or our lives took shape.

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What I Miss About Film

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I’m always fascinated when I meet a photographer who has never shot a roll of film. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean it in a critical way. I’ve fully embraced and invested in digital, just like you. Couldn’t do what I do without it. It’s just interesting to me, though, how so many photographers have never used one of the most basic elements in all of photography. I can’t (and don’t) blame them. It’s timing. The history of photography in general– and the digital age in particular– has come a very long way in a very short time. Cameras get smaller. Sensors get bigger. “iPhonography” is actually a thing. And don’t even get me started on some of the insanely impressive time-lapse photography going on out there. Exciting stuff.

And yet, I miss film.

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