Early "portrait" of my father, taken when I was about nine years old
Photography has been an important part of my life as far back as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories of taking photographs while growing up in Tucson involve a pinhole camera that I made by taping a 35mm film box to one of those old 126 film cartridges used in the early Kodak Instamatic cameras, and I still have negatives of photos that I must have shot – judging by the subject matter – when I was around eight to ten years old.
In high school I got my first “serious” interchangeable lens SLR camera – an Olympus OM-1N – which went with me everywhere and served me well for about fifteen years. Looking back, it’s easy to see how I was known by my friends as the “camera guy” and often asked to take photos for special occasions.
As looked back on my growing body of work I began to understand that photographing people was about capturing moments in time, that the photographs that I took were a record of that specific moment – an instant that would and could never happen again. And that made each photograph special.
Every photographer captures moments in time, certainly. But I’ve learned that if I can draw the person I’m photographing into the camera, if I can establish a connection that ends up making it into the final print, then I’ve not only captured a moment, but created the beginnings of a story. Then, it’s simply up to the viewer as to what that story may be.
I want to connect the person I’m photographing to the people who will eventually see the photograph. I want draw the viewer into the image and hold them there for a moment; if I can do that, then I’ve made a step toward succeeding with what I set out to do. And ultimately, what I set out to do is to create an image that will be as powerful, as evocative, as beautiful tomorrow, as it is today.
Now working as a freelance photographer in Tucson – specializing in portrait photography as well as fashion and fine art photography – my goal is to provide images of exceptional quality through focused effort and attention to detail.
Available in Tucson and Greater Arizona for:
- Portraiture: Individual, families, infants, Senior portraits
- Fashion, portfolio development, headshots
- Fine Art/Glamour
- Weddings, engagements, events
- Commercial photography, product photography
- Pet photography
- Art reproduction
- Digital image restoration and manipulation
- Workshops
For a preview of some of my current work, please visit the Portfolio link at the top of the page.
Hello,
I am a 55 year old male and Tucson resident looking to explore the possibility of modeling, more specifically catalog work. I know first that I will need to a portfolio so I would like your recommendations on what that may include. I guess what I really want to know is what am I looking at as for as content and cost for an initial portfolio.
Thank you,
Randy Green
@Randy: Responded via email.
I am interested in your WordPress template. I am in the process of redoing my site, and stumbled across your on the WordPress forums.
My site looks terrible right now because I am in process of pulling the old style… It looks nothing like it did. Your template has a lot of what I want. I am not a photographer, but a reptile breeder. I use my site to sell my animals. I need to be able to display them with nicely. I also need to be able to integrate the WP e-commerce plugin. I use this as a shopping cart to sell the animals.
Some questions…
Will it be hard for me to have a sidebar on my shopping cart pages?
Does it support drop down menus out of the box? I am in the process of integrating pixopoint now.
Thanks!
I love your work, Galen.. Your fine art/nudes are so beautiful!
Hope to work with you soon!
@Larry,
I use the WP e-commerce plugin with my theme. Very simple – just add the e-commerce widgets to the sidebar. I can’t answer about drop-down menus or Pixopoint, because I didn’t have those things in mind when I made the theme. I can play around with Pixopoint as time allows and get back to you at a later date.
I came up with this theme framework as a result of failing to find other themes that fit my needs. I also tried to come up with a solution that would meet as many of the guidelines in the Theme Development Checklist as possible. I found, for example, that most of the themes the I looked at were unable to properly display parent/child pages, so I worked that into my theme and have that as an option if I want to use it. The theme has proven to be so effective that I’ve since used it as the framework for a number of other sites that I’ve designed for clients.
G.
@Jay Lynn: Thank you!