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Some years ago, I would occasionally eat at this Chinese restaurant near where I worked at the time, and is generally the custom at Chinese restaurants, there was a fortune cookie included with it. 
The fortune cookie I got from that meal, said, "Talents that are not shared, are not talents."

I know that's nothing too unusual, but the next time I ate there, a few weeks or so later,  I got the same fortune, so that mantra has kind of stuck with me ever since.

With that, I thought I share two recent places that have spotlighted my photography.

The first one, is an online fly fishing magazine called Kype Magazine, while the magazine has been around for a while, this is the first issue created by its new owner and publisher Aileen Lane.  Aileen, also is the fly tier extraordinaire behind MKFlies and she is also one third of the trifecta of Fly Fishing Ventures and many other things.

Check out issue 5.2 here:


The second spotlight was on a film photography website called Develop & Fix that did a similar interview and spotlight on my photography, which you can check out HERE .


Thanks for reading and checking out these two spotlights.

Brian

Streamers

As part of my fly fishing experience, I also tie flies, and some of my favorites to tie and fish with are streamers...

One way I like to tie streamers is by using a cool product by the FlyMen Fishing Company, called Fish-Skulls

I tied up a few earlier this year, for an adventure down the Green River, so naturally I had to photograph them as well..

I am still trying to master my macro technique, because out of the twelve images I could have gotten, I only had three useable ones, with these two being the ones I thought were the better images.

Note to self:  When you are using the "blub" setting, make sure and set it back to the "normal" shutter speed or at least check that it is when you are outdoors!
Brian

A little tenkara fishing...

It's been a while, I know.  It's not that I haven't been out fishing, it's just that I haven't had a lot of opportunities for photographs, not only that, when I have been out, the fishing has been pretty good, damn good for me actually.
My last outing was awesome, I caught about eight trout, most of which were browns, but I also caught a nice cutthroat too.
We were tenkara fishing, but in the not so "traditional" sense of the word, we were doing it the outlaw way, we were "Tenkara Outlaws"....

What's a "Tenkara Outlaw" you ask?
Some will also call this style of fly fishing, American tenkara fishing and I have even heard it called "Punk Rock" tenkara fishing too.
In it's simplest terms it's a blending of western style fly fishing and tenkara fly fishing where you make it your own, whatever that means. 
 
In "outlaw tenkara" fishing, you use the same long reel-less tenkara fly rod and a fixed amount of line, but after that things differ in many ways.
As was the case in this particular outing we were using a fixed length of line, a level line,  western style flies, two actually and a strike indicator.
I have even heard of others using western style weight forward floating lines and even sinking lines on their tenkara rods.

So if you think that you have to be a traditionalist when it comes to tenkara fishing, I urge you to think outside of the traditional box and be a tenkara outlaw.

Brian

My Flickr Stream

Unless you follow me on Flickr, you probably aren't seeing everything I put up online.  Even though I use a Holga, use primarily black and white film and shoot mostly fly fishing subjects, I do occasionally use color film and shoot something other than fly fishing.
So with that, I thought I'd put up some of my favorite color photographs that I have done fairly recently.
This first one, goes back to July.  Back in 2006 or so I started photographing those "inflatable characters" that  you typically see at used car lots and what not, it was a short lived project, that stopped mostly I stopped seeing them in my area. But on such occasions as the Fourth of July for instance you will see them at firework stands.  I'd really like to shoot more of these, but I just don't see them around like I used to anymore. I think they are hilarious, and I think photographing them with a toy camera add to that hilarity.  Don't you?  To see more of these photographs, check out the "Inflatable Characters" set on Flickr.

Another theme of sorts that you will see in my Flickr stream and may have seen a little through here revolves around, Veterans, military and patriotism, which I come by naturally being a Veteran.
These two photographs come from a local Veterans Day parade from this past Veterans Day.

I know the United States and all that it does and what not, isn't the perfect country, but it is where I live, so I will always stand beside her, so you will see The Flag in a lot of photographs on Flickr too.

If you like what you see here, fishing or not, take a look at the rest of my Flickr stream and look me up, I go by Red Holga Man..

Brian

  

Old Photographs Revisted

I have been reading Jason Landry's book, Instant Connections  lately and it caused me to revisit a particular group of images I took back in October of 2009.  It is often said that you as the photographer are your own worst editor, to which I am guilty of, mostly because my circle of friends is rather limited.
When I first got the roll of film back I did what I do every time I get a roll of film back, I gave it a quick once over while slide each strip into its respective slot on the file page, then I wait for a short bit and then I give them a good look at. I usually select the negative or negatives to print based on that initial gut feeling, which was the case in this first photograph.

 
This particular photograph and moment was the one the editors chose to accompany the write up about me that appeared in Fly Rod & Reel magazine after all, so it must be the better moment. Right?

I generally go back over my negatives,months and sometimes years later,  just to see if one that I didn't print was better then the one I did, and reading Instant Connections has caused me to look at the other three moments I took that fall day in 2009.

Looking at the third frame, the following photograph was the first one I made of this angler and scene.

Looking at it now as I did then, I think passing over it was the right choice.  I don't think this photograph  was the right one, the composition and framing just don't work.

 Moving on to the next frame on the roll, is the one, I initially selected,  but when I look at the next frame after that, I begin to wonder, was it really the better photograph.  The differences are subtle between the two photographs, but there are a few, that cause me to wonder.

Can you see the differences?  I don't know how many seconds or so the two are part, but I am sure there are several considering the slowness involved in advancing the film on a Holga.

But then, there is this photograph the fourth and last photograph of this angler and scene.

While this is a completely different moment than the other photographs, I am not sure why I am now just putting it out there for the first time..


I guess it proves that sometimes you have to live with the photographs you take and go back to them every once in a while...
So you tell me, is the first photograph I choose, the better one or are any of the other three better? 

Brian

Holga Macro

It's hard to believe that it is already March and I am just now making my first post of 2014, hopefully the Troutrageous one, or anyone else for that won't quarantine me for lack of activity..
I haven't been out fishing too much so far this year, but I can say that if the fishing I have I done so far, is any indication of what the rest of 2014 will be like, then 2014 will be my best year ever...
That being said, I have done some photography too, mostly some macro stuff of the flies I have been tieing, which I have done a lot of. 
Of all of the things I have done with my Holga, the one thing I have struggled to master is doing "macro" photographs with it.  While I have had success using this technique, I am still working on getting more successful photographs, meaning, photographs that are in focus, and where the object or objects I am photographing are composed well within the frame. 
With that, I leave you with the best of the few "macro" photographs I have made recently; it's of some kebari flies I tied..

Thanks for checking this post out..
Brian

Trees - Or I processed it myself

Late this past summer, I had the opportunity to spend some time in the Uintah mountains, with my family, and I while I don't consider myself much of landscape of nature photographer, there is a lot to be said the artistic quality of a grove of aspen trees. On top of that, I never really planned on posting any of these pics, until recently when I had the opportunity to process the two rolls of film myself. You read that right I processed the film myself, which was quiet a treat, considering that it was something that I hadn't done in more than 20 years. Although I could process my film at home, I am fortunate enough to live in a city there has a small co-op darkroom, at the Salt Lake Photo Collective.  There are even one or two other community darkrooms in the Salt Lake City area, including the one at the Salt Lake Art Center. 

And while the area I did these photographs in wasn't close to the river I was fishing that week, a lot of the places I fish are near aspens, and I think there are a lot of artistic qualities going on with with all of the lines they have and that are created in a large grove.  

I have been using Ilford HP5 film lately and processed the films in Ilford's Ilfosol S and I am not sure if it was the right developer for the HP5, because these came out rather flat, especially the two square ones, the light was flat that day too as I recall.

 Brian

All of this talk about trees kind of reminds me of a poem, one you may have read or heard before...

Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer