The Photographer of the Month For September 2024 is Bob Hare

I wrote my previous Photographer of the Month biography for our April 2019 meeting.  That was almost five and one-half years ago.  Much has changed in that time and many things remain the same.  Looking back over a longer span of time, it’s been a long strange journey.  I served a tour with the US Marine Corps flying helicopters.  Lived in the Dominican Republic for three years flying executives for a major US corporation, where I met and married a British girl, my current wife of forty-four years (and she still has an accent!).  I then had a corporate pilot career flying out of the New York area, carrying corporate executives all over the world for nineteen years until I flew too close to the sun and lost my aviation medical qualification.  I spent the following fourteen years bedeviling my fellow pilots as a pilot instructor in several international aviation training companies.  I retired from work ten years ago.

You would think that with all of that travel, I would have a lot of interesting pictures in my collection.  I do have a few, but none are included in this small portfolio collection.  Before retirement I took snapshots.  I was pretty happy with them until, during our retirement travels I noticed that my wife took more interesting pictures than I did - even though we shot the same subjects.  She had formal art training, so I didn’t feel bad about that, but I started to try to upgrade my picture taking skills.  A couple of night school photography classes at NCC and a PPC membership got me on the right track to taking pictures that others might find interesting.  The journey continues!

I have lost count of the cameras I have owned from my beloved Brownie Hawkeye box camera to my current equipment.  Like most aspiring photographers, I went the route of bigger, better, heavier, more expensive gear.  That was fun, but didn’t really make my picture taking any better.  I am currently using a Google Pixel 8 Pro camera/phone (yes, I use it in that order) and an OM System (formerly known as Olympus) OM-1 micro four-thirds mirrorless camera.  As time goes on, I am using the Pixel more and more.  Both cameras make heavy use of computational photography technology to make picture taking magic.

My goal in taking pictures now is to find and capture interesting pictures.  If they are technically perfect, that’s great, but it is not the goal.  It has finally come to my attention that a perfectly composed, exposed and edited image of a scene with no focal point and no story really can never be interesting.  I was crushed to learn that the compelling pictures I took of popular scenes have been taken thousands of times before - and usually with better results than I can achieve.  Of course I still take those pictures for my collection and to compare my technique to others.  But now I am more interested in seeing and capturing interesting angles on common scenes.  I love to walk around and look for the unusual in the common and mundane.  Sometimes careful framing and lighting can make buildings, vehicles and persons look intriguing, mysterious or moody.  The biggest gift that I have received from an interest in photography is a new way of looking at everything looking for an unusual angle or perspective of something common, or a scene that makes me wonder what is the story behind it.  Architecture is interesting.  Some structures offer abstract views, some are historic and may not be destined to exist much longer in our ever changing world.  

So, what kind of pictures do I like to take?  I don’t have a favorite photographic genre.  I am a collector and scavenger at heart.  I try to collect interesting scenes in towns, events, urban decay, mechanical equipment - modern and old.  Show me something with unusual patterns of construction or striking shadow and light and you have my attention.  And with two very young grandchildren, I’m always looking to capture the wonder and surprise of young children.  I rarely plot out an outing to capture a specific image of wildlife or sunset scene.  I am opportunistic.  I am always looking for the interesting scene that is just waiting for me to discover it.  Sometimes I even find it.

Macro opportunities are all around us.  I have a dedicated macro lens for my OM-1, but I rarely mount it.  The kit 14-150mm zoom lens gives me the flexibility I need to capture my eclectic prey.  When I see an amazing flower bud or odd insect, I usually whip out my Pixel 8 Pro.  It takes amazing macro closeups.  No tripod or focus stacking is used.  I am looking for interesting scenes, not cataloging flora and fauna.  The Pixel’s 10X optical zoom lens gives fair versatility for travel photography.  With pretty good pixel interpolation, the Pixel can take a decent 50X digital zoom shot if you don’t want to print a large image.

Photography is a journey without end, and I am enjoying the ride!