Welcome to Spirit Light Photography!

Well, if you have made it this far, I suppose I should tell you a little about myself. I wish I had one of those life stories where I could say I picked up my first camera when I was 8 years old and that the rest is history. Didn't happen that way. I got interested in photography while in college (a long time ago), and thought I knew just about everything. Quite clearly, I now realize how little I still know and how much I still learn every time I go out to photograph. I am completely self taught (probably shows) and have gone many times to the school of hard knocks. During the first 25 years of my "photographic life," I shot with 35mm equipment and then medium format. A 5 year stint working in Yellowstone National Park was a highlight during that time. I followed that up with a year working in Zion National Park. It was after working in Zion in 1987 that I started to get a little more serious about my work. Still, it would be several years later before photography would become an obsession. In the late 1990's, a couple of things happened - I realized now much I enjoyed traveling back to the Southwest and I picked up my first 4X5 camera. Those two things have done more to influence my photography than anything else. So, that takes me to the present.

I still enjoy getting back to the Southwest several times a year. Zion and the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area usually occupies the majority of my time. While I like to see and photograph different places, I really enjoy going back to the same places over and over again to really get to know the area. However, I also have come to enjoy the scenery much closer to home here in Wisconsin.

Enough with the personal info. I'll try to give you a bit of the technical information if you are interested in reading further. As I mentioned earlier, I started shooting with a 4X5 about 8 years ago. And while I still use it for the majority of my work, I also now use 5X7 and 4X10 cameras. The main reason for using large format is twofold - I like the larger transparency for printing and I like having movements on the camera to facilitate depth of field issues. Once I have my transparency or slide in hand, then technololgy enters the discussion. All my images are scanned and output to either an Epson 9600 inkjet printer or a Lightjet (which exposes photographic paper using lasers.) The inkjet printer being the most often used equipment simply because I own one and the results (as far as I am concerned) are the equal of the Lightjet in color reproduction, sharpness, and longevity. The Epson printer also lets me control all aspects of my printing and also allows me greater control over my inventory of prints. To get to the final print, I use Photoshop to do my adjusting of color balance, contrast and saturation adjustments, buring and dodging, and ridding the image of dust or other imperfections.

That being said, all my photographs are printed to the way I originally perceived the scene. And while this is usually very close to the way the film might see it, it is never exactly the same. Film and the human eye do not see light in the same way. Matter of fact, everbody sees light slightly differently. As I work on a photo, I hope to get an emotional response similar to the one I had when I originally photographed the scene. If I do, then I hopefully have succeeded with the print. And I hope that you have enjoyed the results also. Oh, and one last note, please realize that these web images do not come close to the color fidelity and sharpness of the real photos.