January 2010 Photographer of the Month

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HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our members and guests!

To start 2010, we're going to begin a new feature for our website, entitled: "Photographer of the Month." As our club grows, it gets more difficult to remember everyone’s name and who knows how to edit this or light that... so our intent is to give everyone a chance to not only meet, but to really get to know one another.

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce Brad Zemcik! Because Brad’s last name starts with the letter Z, (and if you remember back to school days when almost everything was done alphabetically the letter Z always went last,) I thought it would be nice to let Brad go first.

By Brad Zemcik

I got interested in photography as a kid. I can’t remember the cameras my dad had but I think my first camera was a Kodak Brownie Starmite. If it wasn’t that exact model, it was very similar. In Junior High School I took a Graphics Arts class and part of the course was photography. I had a Yashica-‐Mat Twin Lens Reflex and my benevolent dad got me a Petri 35mm (S7, I think) range finder camera. Now I could buy bulk film in 100‐foot rolls, empty canisters, and roll my own film as well as develop it all in the temporary darkroom I set up in my bathroom. Eventually I moved to the garage and was able to keep my equipment set up all the time.

My travels took me to Europe and the Soviet Union in the mid and late 60’s where my Petri did the trick with the famous Kodachrome slide film. It served me very well. While I was attending university in the UK I purchased an additional (German brand) camera for black and white film only. If only I had my Canon 40D back then!

I carried on with my hobby after returning to the US and purchased an Olympus OM-‐1. I can’t remember all the lenses I had but my main lens had a wide angle of 28mm because I shoot a lot of cars (B pillar shots) and I wanted the wide angle without getting any warping. Other than the car photography, I wasn’t active in photography as I was figuring out computers. I did pick up a Minolta Dimage 3 megapixel camera, which was mind boggling at the time, and I also picked up an Olympus 5050 prior to a special European vacation. The camera worked well, in relative terms, but it saved me a huge amount on film costs and bad photo processing.

About three years ago we were planning another big vacation. I had been reading about the Canon 40D. It was enticing and I really wanted it. One day I climbed in the car, drove to the camera store and ordered it. I immediately made up a package of all my old film “stuff” and had to accept $250 for lots of good stuff I felt I would not use again, including my Olympus 5050. The Canon arrived one day before we left on vacation. I was given a quick tutorial but wound up using “Auto” most of the time... I didn’t have the manual with me and probably wouldn’t have understood it at the time, as it was a quantum leap from my Olympus 5050.

The funniest thing was while on a train ride into a city, I pulled the 40D out of the bag and as I held it up to take a picture, my wife exclaimed: “Oh, I haven’t seen that before have I?” Thank goodness we were part of a group and they all soon tagged me the group photographer. My wife let the rest slide – whew! The camera was awesome!

After returning, I have made an effort to learn as much as possible about the 40D (still learning...) and attending every Canon work session I hear about. I was about to buy the 5D MkII but after seeing the 7D, I have to bet that many of those technologies will find their way into the next generation full frame Canon camera. In the meantime, I’m buying “glass”. If you know of a good deal on a Canon 70-‐200 EF IS 2.8 lens please let me know. The other lens I’d like to get is the Canon Tilt-‐Shift TS-‐E 24mmf3.5II.

I currently shoot everything because that way I learn more. Last month I did my first fireworks shoot and by reading and doing, I learned some new techniques. My main interest however, is antique cars and unique cars. In August I spent a week at Pebble Beach events shooting and reporting for the Rolls‐Royce Owners’ Club. With Bentley as one of the featured marquees it was right up my alley. Between those and all the other cars, it was a real treat, which I should be doing again next year.

Shoot, learn, shoot, learn, shoot, learn.

Thank you Brad for a truly great lead off article for our Photographer of the Month feature! Now that you know where Brad has been, is now and where he’s going in photography, if you share similar interests or just have questions for him, walk up and say hello: you’ll find Brad is very approachable and has MUCH to share!If you would like to volunteer to submit an article about who you are so we may all get better acquainted with you, please see me, Barry, during our regular club meetings. If I can't make it to the meeting, Aaron would be happy to have you contact him. This is an extremely good way for us all to learn more about each other than the time constraints of the club meetings might otherwise allow.Did you hear that? Somewhere a shutter just went CLICK!

Below are some of Brad's images. Enjoy!