flar
What are you shooting with and what would you like to shoot with?
Most of my threads are made with a Nikon D50, but I upgraded to a D90 a few weeks ago. The vast majority of my shots use the Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens. It's a cheap lens but I've had good results with it. It's also very light and so cheap I don't worry about breaking it. My telephoto zoom is the Nikkor 55-200mm, which I traded in for the VR model a few days ago. I also have a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 non-AF, but find that focal length a bit tight for city photos and not long enough for people photos. I've ordered the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 which will serve as my fast lens.
I have almost exactly the equipment I want. The D90 is the best camera for me. The more expensive cameras are too big. Both the D50 and D90 are great cameras and are the perfect size for walking around. Even better, they don't scare people or attract too much attention. Every photographer would like to have lots of expensive lenses, but the size and weight of pro lenses or an ultra wide angle lens is a consideration for me. I walk around cities for hours at a time so I like to travel light and not worry about dropping an expensive lens on the sidewalk. I'm thinking about getting the Nikkor 16-85mm VR to replace my kit lens. The 16-85 range would cover about 85% of my shots and gives me an extra 2mm on the wide end. It's noticeably heavier than the kit lens, but still fairly compact. To complete the set I would like the 85mm f/1.4, but would settle for the f/1.8.
If you could sum up your style in one photograph what photo would it be?
It's impossible for me to choose a single photo, my photos tend to work better as a set than individually.
This thread shows the type of photography I like most, and what people probably associate with me. I like to capture the soul of the city, show a bit of the people as well as the buildings, and show the good and the bad. Some of my photos are landscapes or urban scenes, some are of people, and a lot are just pictures of houses and buildings.
Talk about your inspirations and influences.
I haven't studied or even paid much attention to any specific famous photographers. I was inspired and influenced mostly by other photographers here on SSP. When I was starting out I spent a lot of time looking at threads by giovanni sasso, giallo, kilgore trout, Flash, ColDayMan and many others. I have to credit mrherodotus for pioneering the neighbourhood tour and documentation of housing vernacular.
There is a lot of great photography on this site, so the bar keeps getting raised, which in turn challenges everyone to improve.
Where have you not been that you want to photograph?
St. Louis, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Those cities have soul.
Talk about your most popular (in your opinion) photothreads.
I've been lucky to have many popular threads. The ones with the most replies usually don't feature my best photography, but the subjects are interesting or provocative, for example
Suburbia! or
Mississauga City Centre. The
series on Hamilton did very well.
Twilight of the Industrial Age started things off as my first really huge thread. Grit is usually popular, I had a few other successful threads about gritty subjects. The popularity of
Paris, Ontario took me by surprise. I think people thought they were going to see Montreal, but were treated instead to a small picturesque town.
The rest of my threads can be found
here.
Talk about your photothreads that didn't get the response you wanted.
A few of the Ottawa tours haven't done so well, I was surprised how little attention the
ByWard Market thread got. Another one that didn't get many views was
Merrickville, which is one of Ontario's best preserved Victorian towns.
Old Oakville has some great examples of very early Ontario architecture, which might surprise some because Oakville is generally thought of as bland suburbia, which might be why a lot of people overlooked it.
Any tips or personal wisdom you'd like to pass on to others?
My advice is not to take advice from the likes of me. But I'll pass on what I've learned about making photothreads:
I like to keep threads focused, like a neighbourhood, a street, people, an architectural style, etc. But I also do variety threads. 60 or 70 photos is usually plenty, but I've occasionally posted over 100. If you have doubts about the quality of a photo, don't post it (I usually don't break this rule). Don't post multiple photos of the same thing. Think about the order of the photos, keep things interesting and varied or tell a story. When you visit a place, do some research ahead of time so you don't miss anything interesting. If you're shooting a neighbourhood or a small town, try to be comprehensive. Cloudy days are good, because you don't have to fight with sun and shadows. Obviously some places are more interesting and worthy of a thread than others, but that's about it.
Who should we ask these questions of next?
I'd like to hear from many of the photographers on here. The choice was so tough I wrote down the names of a few people and randomly chose...and Sekkle is our next lucky contestant!