Photography

I love photography.

Especially of natural settings like this one I took at Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks of New York. It is not exceptional, not award winning, not unusual. But I like it.

I have been shooting 35mm film for over 40 years and amassed a collection that is a lot to go through. I know others have taken hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pictures. I am not in that arena. Maybe 10,000 at the most. My prints are in boxes and albums and I have only recently scanned them all into digital format. 

Even with that task completed, they sit on hard drives, unseen, and still, I keep taking more pictures. More with a real camera than the one embedded in my cell phone, which I use occasionally. But then I don't usually recall those. Taking a photo with a cell phone, while the quality is there, the magic is not.

Not so many years ago, getting film rolls developed at the drugstore, as harsh as it was to the environments meant to be preserved via chemicals on paper, was a great feeling. Nothing about it was instant. Waiting was part of the fun. Wondering what you would get. If the sunsets and rodeo action and animals and mountains would look the way you remember them. Or look even better in full and vibrant color. 

On some occasions I shot on black and white film. Fuji, Kodak, whatever was available. Those were exceptionally fun because of the mysterious depth B&W adds to the image. Once you were shooting black and white on that old Canon T-50, no matter how lovely the colors were, you had to put your memory to work and just take the shot. Even when looking at these old photos now, believe it or not, I still recall the colors. B&W was always worth it. 

It was imperfect. It was fun. It was art. 

I maintain a gallery of some of my favorites on Flickr. These include the USA, Canada, China, Venezuela, Peru, and Iceland. I have not uploaded everything. In fact, I haven't even gotten to the B&Ws yet, but there are lots of colorful things for you to see what caught my eye. There is a lot more I to get through. I will add more galleries in the future, so take a look, and come back to visit again, soon. If you would like a copy of anything for personal noncommercial use, just download it, and credit me as the photographer. If you are so inclined, feel free to leave me a tip.

Thanks for looking.

Enjoy.

Mike Rembis’ Photo Albums on Flickr