Photography is really useful to me. In the black-and-white, darkroom days, I was a photo editor at a series of school publications, so I attended a lot of events that I wouldn't otherwise have made the time for - a rodeo, a catfish derby, a wrestling match, a Nader speech. As a scientist, I've needed to document and promote my projects. As an educator, I want to celebrate the big events and the small gestures that tell the stories of my students. But the real reason I shoot is to compensate for my poor skills as an observer. I don't know the color of my best friend's eyes. I can't tell you if the next door neighbor drives a Honda or a Volvo. But when I am shooting, I commit myself to the subject. I will try to think about composition and light and the telling details. And then I think about all of that again when processing (and discarding the vast majority of) photos. This step is especially valuable for macros, when you look at your 5 mm subject on a 27" monitor.
I sell images for textbooks, commercial ads, and magazines, including National Geographic and Smithsonian--enough to pay for my equipment. My current photo repository is in SMUGMUG. I also use a lot of video, though most of my projects are quick and unpolished efforts for a specific purpose. For example, a piece to teach second graders about molecules (and the scientist version). In summer 2017, I made a more ambitious piece on centered on the arthropods of a mountain mint plant, one day in August.
And I've added a few samples below:
I sell images for textbooks, commercial ads, and magazines, including National Geographic and Smithsonian--enough to pay for my equipment. My current photo repository is in SMUGMUG. I also use a lot of video, though most of my projects are quick and unpolished efforts for a specific purpose. For example, a piece to teach second graders about molecules (and the scientist version). In summer 2017, I made a more ambitious piece on centered on the arthropods of a mountain mint plant, one day in August.
And I've added a few samples below: