I've been lurking and occasionally posting for a few weeks, and thought it was time to post something here.
Name: Benno Jones
Age: 43
Location: Seattle, WA USA
Formats: 35mm, 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, 6x17, 9x12cm, 10x15cm, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10. But these days mostly the 10x15, 4x5 & 8x10. Someday 7x17 or 8x20, I hope.
I started taking pictures in High School back in the 70's. My father was a writer for Sports Illustrated magazine and through several of the photographers he worked with I got some assisting gigs and was introduced into the religion of Nikon. My first camera was a Nikon FM that served me long and well until 3 years ago when it's meter died. Through my 20s and 30s I did not shoot as much, and it was not about 1998 that I started seriously taking pictures again. I bought a Nikon N70 and re-taught myself to judge exposure by paying attention to what the camera recommended and how the results turned out.
Within 2 years I had discovered eBay and old folding medium format cameras. With my recovered sense of light, I spent a couple of years shooting with no meter or rangefinder, guesstimating using the sunny 16 rule with generally good results. I was having all my film processed at labs due to a lack of home darkroom space (I have yet to live in an apartment or house with a big enough bathroom or adequate basement space), and by now I had become serious enough that I decided to look into taking some classes to renew my developing and printing skills.
I entered the Certificate Program at Photographic Center Northwest (www.pcnw.org) here in Seattle in 2000 and over the next 4 years took various classes and gradually became more enamored of larger and larger negatives until my final thesis project was shot on 4x5. I had also during this time become an affirmed gear junkie and now have more cameras than I can possibly use, including 4 4x5s (Speed Graphic, Crown Graphic, older Calumet monorail and a Shen-Hao field camera), 5 5x7s (2 old 'cycle' type Senecas, 2 Kodak 33As - 1 in good shape and one a junker for parts, and a beautifully restored Buke & James painted black with red bellows), and 2 8x10s (a matching black and red Burke & James with another battleship grey B&J for parts). Lenses range from a 75mm f/8 Super Angulon to a 21" Ilex Process Paragon mounted in an Acme #4 shutter. In general I am attracted to shooting with vintage equipment, although my only publication was shot on 35mm with both the Nikon N70 and a Nikon F100 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...45/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-0988762-7700102
My subject matter is mainly landscape and natural abstracts. I don't particularly like taking pictures of people. I will include them when I think it serves the image, but in general I prefer my shots without them. I would list as primary photographic influences Brassai, Eliot Porter, & John Pfahl. Secondarily Bruce Barnbaum, John Sexton, Ansel Adams, and (thematically) the Impressionist painters.
I am just about to move into a new area of work: contact printing on Azo. I have always been a confirmed cropper, and to work to make sure the entire negative is the complete composition is helping to stretch me in new directions. Hopefully I'll have some prints to post in the coming weeks.
My website - www.bjonesphoto.com - is rather outdated. I haven't taken the time to work on it in few years. But comments are always welcome.
Keep shooting!
Name: Benno Jones
Age: 43
Location: Seattle, WA USA
Formats: 35mm, 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, 6x17, 9x12cm, 10x15cm, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10. But these days mostly the 10x15, 4x5 & 8x10. Someday 7x17 or 8x20, I hope.
I started taking pictures in High School back in the 70's. My father was a writer for Sports Illustrated magazine and through several of the photographers he worked with I got some assisting gigs and was introduced into the religion of Nikon. My first camera was a Nikon FM that served me long and well until 3 years ago when it's meter died. Through my 20s and 30s I did not shoot as much, and it was not about 1998 that I started seriously taking pictures again. I bought a Nikon N70 and re-taught myself to judge exposure by paying attention to what the camera recommended and how the results turned out.
Within 2 years I had discovered eBay and old folding medium format cameras. With my recovered sense of light, I spent a couple of years shooting with no meter or rangefinder, guesstimating using the sunny 16 rule with generally good results. I was having all my film processed at labs due to a lack of home darkroom space (I have yet to live in an apartment or house with a big enough bathroom or adequate basement space), and by now I had become serious enough that I decided to look into taking some classes to renew my developing and printing skills.
I entered the Certificate Program at Photographic Center Northwest (www.pcnw.org) here in Seattle in 2000 and over the next 4 years took various classes and gradually became more enamored of larger and larger negatives until my final thesis project was shot on 4x5. I had also during this time become an affirmed gear junkie and now have more cameras than I can possibly use, including 4 4x5s (Speed Graphic, Crown Graphic, older Calumet monorail and a Shen-Hao field camera), 5 5x7s (2 old 'cycle' type Senecas, 2 Kodak 33As - 1 in good shape and one a junker for parts, and a beautifully restored Buke & James painted black with red bellows), and 2 8x10s (a matching black and red Burke & James with another battleship grey B&J for parts). Lenses range from a 75mm f/8 Super Angulon to a 21" Ilex Process Paragon mounted in an Acme #4 shutter. In general I am attracted to shooting with vintage equipment, although my only publication was shot on 35mm with both the Nikon N70 and a Nikon F100 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...45/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-0988762-7700102
My subject matter is mainly landscape and natural abstracts. I don't particularly like taking pictures of people. I will include them when I think it serves the image, but in general I prefer my shots without them. I would list as primary photographic influences Brassai, Eliot Porter, & John Pfahl. Secondarily Bruce Barnbaum, John Sexton, Ansel Adams, and (thematically) the Impressionist painters.
I am just about to move into a new area of work: contact printing on Azo. I have always been a confirmed cropper, and to work to make sure the entire negative is the complete composition is helping to stretch me in new directions. Hopefully I'll have some prints to post in the coming weeks.
My website - www.bjonesphoto.com - is rather outdated. I haven't taken the time to work on it in few years. But comments are always welcome.
Keep shooting!