A couple of years ago I had the great fortune to travel to Vienna (known locally as “Wien”, which is where the word “Wiener Schnitzel” comes from) for a business trip. It’s a lovely historical city loaded with culture. One of the things I really love about Europe is the way the historical sections of many major cities (Paris, London, Vienna, etc.) are fairly concentrated and within walking distance of each other. On this trip I had taken an extra day off just to wander around and shoot things– it’s a wonderful place for doing just that. I set out right after breakfast that morning and wandered the city until about 9:00 that night.

I’m not sure why, but when I do travel photography it seems that my favorite photos are not the images of the major landmarks that we all know and love, but more so the triviata that I encounter on my journeys. (Note: I thought I just invented word “triviata”; but it’s a neologism that appeared in literature as far back as 1975, and attributed to Timothy Fullerton. I guess I’ll have to seek fame via other avenues). The photo above, taken from the sidewalk of a side street that the Habsburgs no doubt wandered back in the day, was just such a chance encounter. The facial expressions of the figures seemed to me to beckon out through the shop window to passersby.

More to come…
Dwight

It’s a new year and changes are in the making– new job, new dog, website changes, new projects. I’ll be hanging some photos downtown February and March. Website changes have been done and will continue. Some personal projects are in the making.

Thanks in large part to my lovely wife, Martina, the website has been optimized to load faster. The galleries have all been re-sorted and rearranged to better fit the material (click on Studies to see the rejuvenated galleries). We have midterm plans in the making to totally reconstruct the website aesthetically. Also, as previously mentioned, the ability to order photos will be added to the site. Unfortunately, the first option selected to do this was ultimately deemed unsatisfactory. We’re reviewing a couple of alternatives now. Stay tuned for that option in the near future.

Right now we have to nurse a recent family addition, an animal shelter rescue dog, back to health (apparently he had some serious dental issues from his previous misguided lifestyle and had to suffer multiple dental extractions at the vet today, poor guy).

Watch for continued weekly updates.

Later,

Dwight

My alternative? I just didn’t plan for any reformation…yeah, safe call, huh?

Of course, it’s easier to criticize the hopeful than to set yourself up for failure and criticism. Why do we criticize? Because we’ve all seen (and have been) people who wish for life changes but never seem to take the first step to make that happen. And even if they, we, do take the first step true reform requires long term commitment. What is the magic bullet to long term commitment? Wait for it…hell, who knows?!

Yes, I have achieved true life-changing reform. Fourteen years ago, practically to the day, I smoked my last cigarette after 25 years of intense tobacco dedication. I smoked cigarettes with an unrivaled passion. It was the first thing I did in the morning (before rising) and the last thing I did at night. Each cigarette measured the passing of time, a pause, a musical rest on the “staff” of life. It was the end of a meal, a mental break to solve an analytical problem, a temporary escape from a social event. It was a culture. It tied me to others who felt a bit out of the mainstream, and dammit I liked that. But it was going to kill me and I knew it.

One night I was at the computer fully engulfed in the soothing, noxious, toxic cloud of tobacco smoke, as usual. My wife entered the room, in a recently-induced state of tobacco withdrawal excitability, and justifiably announced concern that her success at smoking cessation was adversely affected by my continued dedication to the object of her recent disdain (yeah, the original transcript of that conversation required way fewer words). My response? “Ok, I’ll quit!”

The next day I smoked my butt off. I set a goal to quit on the day after; so I stayed up until 3 AM and smoked with abandon while researching smoking cessation techniques. At the end of the evening, I destroyed every cigarette left, threw them in the trash can, and dumped the trash can in the dumpster. Then I dumped all the ashtrays and put them in the dishwasher. That was fourteen years ago. I haven’t had a puff since.

What’s the secret to true life-changing reformation? It’s one big decision followed by a million tiny actions (or inactions if you’re quitting a bad habit).

What’s my resolution for this year? Quite simply this…consume less, produce more.

What are your plans for the new year?

Later,

Dwight

I hope it’s a wonderful holiday for all of you who celebrate this season!

Best wishes,

Dwight

I’ve spent some time wondering about this. When I was in college the photography majors seemed to lean very heavily against color photos. The implication was (or so I perceived) that you couldn’t do fine art photography in color. And photos employing “artificial” light were especially eggregious.  I theorized that this philosophy was born from two origins– 1) in the late 70′s the bulk of fine art photography to date had been done in B&W (and they were apparently not teaching William Eggleston at the time), and 2) it’s a lot easier to teach college sophomores how to process B&W film than color.

In the past you didn’t have a choice. But now we do. I can shoot color digital photos all day and decide in post-process whether an image is better rendered in black and white or color. Then how do you decide? As much as I have read about people having instantaneous flashes of enlightenment, I’ve found them chronically absent in my life. Sadly, discovering when to convert to black and white is one of the few epiphanies I have experienced. I don’t remember what photo it was, but there was an element I really liked but the colors in the photo were clashing with each other. I converted it to B&W and suddenly all of the chromatic dissonance in the photo was gone. I was hooked!

Here’s an example.  Which version below do you think better portrays the specific subject (hint: the subject here is the guy)? Yes, I know, most people’s first reaction is “color is better”, but look again. Which version better eliminates the visual elements that distract from the primary subject?

So, stage 1 is discovering that you use B&W when it doesn’t look right in color. I’m there, I’ve got that part. Now I’m hearing that the next step is learning to think in B&W intentionally. I understand that taking the color out of the photographs gives them an unrealistic view and allows us to perceive  them with a less reality based bias. I’d like to explore that further in the near future. So stay tuned.

(And, no, I am not ignoring the holidays, I promise).

Later,

Dwight

What can you expect to see in the near future?

• Better organized, more concise photo galleries with some photos you’ve never seen before (coming very soon).
• Added tools for linking to your social media pages (already installed, see below this post).
• There has been some increased interest recently in purchasing photos from the website. We’re very excited to announce that coming very soon you will have the capability to order prints directly off the website and have them shipped to you.
• Regularly scheduled blogposts– no more extended gaps in posting. Blog entries will now be weekly. But you have to meet me halfway by leaving comments to the posts. The site has followers from six continents and I’m sure some very interesting discussions are just waiting for someone to get it started. Also, let me know via a comment if there are specific topics you’d like to see in the blog.

Power lines– the bane of every photographer’s existence. How many times have I seen “the perfect shot” just to be foiled by power lines in the way? Sure, there are ways around them. You could move; but that always seems to ruin the perspective you had in mind (or would require you to stand in the middle of traffic). You could just remove them in Photoshop; but I refuse to spend hours cloning out power lines (life’s too short). If the lines are significantly closer to you than the subject you are photographing you can adjust your depth of field so that the lines go far enough out of focus to disappear; but that means your subject will have a shallow depth of field, and only works if the lines are a lot closer to you than the subject.

So, what do you do? Sometimes I just say to heck with it and embrace the presence of power lines. They deserve love too, right? Above and below are a few examples where I espoused this philosophy.

In this shot I liked the way the "power lines" (they were actually guy-wires) radiated from the post and countered the lines of the Pinnacle Building in the background.

The light fixtures and power lines were what actually attracted me to this street scene in Vienna. If you're from Europe these lights are probably unremarkable. I've just never seen them in the US.

Would this photo have more impact without the power lines-- maybe. I think they add a bit of counterpoint to the vertical lines in the photo, though.

Is there something distracting you from your primary subject? Maybe you should shift your focus.

Later,

Dwight

I have been fighting it for years, but I finally relented. Look, I know that the value of light is the vocabulary of the photographer– I embrace that. I value the importance of the direction, color, intensity, quality (hardness vs.  softness), the interplay of light and shadow– the elements of light. I am a dedicated student of the parameters of the proton en masse. And I am painfully aware of the mantra of the outdoor photographer, “to capture the best light you have to be there before sunrise.” But, dammit, I used to be a musician– when I witnessed daylight it was at the end of my day. And it wasn’t always pretty.

I gave it a shot, though…in New Orleans. As you might expect, New Orleans is quite the hodgepodge of humanity at 5 AM. I headed into the French Quarter at Canal Street and Royal, one block south of Bourbon Street and witnessed a blend of restaurant workers arriving for the morning shift, street cleaners, strip show workers ending their shifts, drunk fratboys, and people making the walk of shame way overdressed for the breakfast hours.

And then there were the cats.

I have no idea what the culture of this phenomenon is; but there was a substantial number of antique and curio shop windows that were occupied by cats. They posed and stretched and gawked and yawned, apparently basking in the glow of the morning sun.

For whatever reason, the morning was their domain. And what the heck, it’s not a bad life hanging out in the shop window isolated from the activities on the street but still able to watch.

Maybe next time I’ll just sit in the window with the cats and my camera and watch what the rising sun illuminates as it peeks down the morning streets.

Later,

Dwight

It’s that time again! What… triple-digit heat indices, astronomic electric bills, back to school vaccinations, and chiggers (parasitic larval stage of the  harvest mite, for those of you not from the southeastern US)? Yes, all that and more! And…the Wilson County Fair (near Nashville, TN)!

Yeah, I know, county fairs– stifling heat, corny sideshows, shifty carnies, over-priced rides, and toxic food (funnel cake, corn-dog, or fried beer anyone?). And yet, a county fair at its best is one of the last bastions of the American agrarian culture. At a time when the church social potluck is more likely to render a bucket of KFC than a cast-iron skillet of homemade corn bread, it’s nice to see that there are still people that take pride in the quality of their homemade pickles. There are still kids out there raising prize goats, and there are still old timers that enjoy cleaning up the WWII vintage Chevy or thrashing machine once a year to show millenials and gen-X’ers how it was done back-in-the-day.

I’m all for the concept of planetary citizenry but there’s a lot to be said for regional authenticity. Let’s face it, we don’t go to Barcelona to eat at McDonalds. So let us sing the praises of the county fair and its ability to stamp a sense of place and history on the psyche of the local residents for a week or so each year.

Click the link below to view a few shots from past Wilson County Fairs.

http://atterholt.com/galleries/wilson-county-fair/

If you follow this post, you know that it has been a rather busy time for me lately. Over the last few years, I haven’t traveled as much as in the more distant past. Typically I’ve had three or four trips a year for business and then a couple or three for pleasure. This summer has been a recent exception– NYC, Reading/Winchester England, New Orleans, and over the past three weeks Barcelona, San Francisco and then off to the mountains of Tennessee’s central basin for a week-long vacation with the family.  When I’ve gone quite some time without posting, I always feel that the next post should be something big and significant. That need just seems to delay the next post even further. Instead, I decided to just go ahead and post whether it be epic or not.

Successful photographers often suggest slowing down and using a more contemplative approach to photography. I understand the value of this and can appreciate what can be achieved if you really take in the surroundings, pre-visualize the photographic result you seek, and then bring technology into harmony with the setting to put forth the vision that resides in your imagination. I also understand that almost every one of the photographs that I am proud of are a result of having my camera set properly for the surroundings and then just being alert when something happens.

That’s what occurred for the photo above. My wife and I were just hanging around Jackson Square in New Orleans checking things out when I saw this lady with a bright sunflower umbrella was about to enter the store. I knew she was just on the verge of entering the shade and the opportunity would be missed so I just whipped up my camera, focused, composed, and hoped everything was set right. In the end I’m pretty happy with the result.

Later,

Dwight