Practicing Photography - PhotoTrice

The Flying Horse

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A Great Place in the Hill Country

Ask anyone in the Hill Country where to find the Cowboy Capital of the World and they will say Bandera Texas. It’s a small town with a beautiful nineteenth century courthouse and a cast of ‘The Bronco Buster’ by Remington in the middle of town. A few blocks South is the Flying Horse. At least that’s what it looks like to me.

There are plenty of things to do and see in town. Small shops, restaurants and bars are scattered along Main Street. Just remember this is ranching country so the barbecue is excellent and is always beef. Vegetarians won’t starve there is plenty variety for every taste.

Not All Cowboys Ride Horses

The hill country in is a great place to ride so Bandera is filled with motorcycles on the weekends.The annual bike rally each spring attracts thousands of riders. The municipal park North of town turns in a huge campground for the better part of a week. There are plenty of beautiful machines and noise but everyone is always friendly.

Don’t like camping and hotels too tame? Dude Ranch

Free Calendars for the New Year

We are pleased to announce the first photo calendar downloads for 2020. This marks the third series of photo calendars from PhotoTrice. We hope you enjoy them and don’t forget to tell your friends.

The calendars are created as secured PDF documents for print or online display. Two date formats are available, North America version with weeks starting on Sunday or World version with weeks starting on Monday. You may distribute them freely as long as the original PhotoTrice logo, website information and copyright notice remain intact.

North American calendars have weeks starting on Sunday.
International calendars have weeks starting on Monday

Free Photo Calendar Downloads

Download this photo calendar using the links below. They are completely free with no signup or personal information required. The calendars are published as secured PDF documents that may be printed or displayed as desired.

Among the Trees

My year long project to photograph using only a Sony A7II body and legacy lenses is nearing completion. I plan to do a full postmortem of the project later this year. In the meantime some things have become clear. Most importantly I have discovered that using manual focus lenses is an advantage in almost all situations except for fast action shooting. Going into the project I expected that manual focus would be a limitation. It is not a limitation at least for me. Slowing down and thinking before shooting has improved my photography. I see no reason to go back to using auto focus lenses any time soon.

Another interesting thing I’ve discovered is a preference for using shorter focal length lenses. In the past I relied upon zoom lenses and often used long focal lengths of 200-300mm simply to frame shots without moving. That is a bad habit. Now I find myself using a 35mm prime lens for almost all my photography. Long lenses do have a place but they should not be a crutch for sloppy technique.

This photograph was shot a few days ago using a forty plus year old Super Takumar 35mm m42 mount lens. It has proved to be my absolute favorite lens for the project.

Moving Forward

Lately I’m been making quite a few experimental photo based images. The most recent works are composite images combining photos from my archive with various found textures using a variety of techniques. The results range from good to downright awful. Many people who see the resulting work find it quite annoying and without conventional aesthetic appeal. Guilty as charged.

For many years I constrained myself to making photographs in the predictable way most non-professionals work, which is of course to emulate professionals. I worked especially hard to learn digital black and white photography. It is fun and interesting to produce good black and white work that fits within that conventional niche. Making a good finished photo is still satisfying to me.

I have reached a point where I need to be able to exercise more creativity in my work. I still make black and white images but they are often interpreted into something more like photo based digital art. That is not a term I embrace but it makes the point that many of my images are no longer completely photographic.

I’m not giving anything up by doing interpreted images. It just means my practice has broadened to include other types of image making. Right now I’m only using digital techniques but I hope to start physically modifying paper based images with paint and tools in the future. I’m not a great artist, but I draw inspiration from Matisse who worked with paper and scissors in his last years. He had courage to continue making excellent new work. Maybe I can do the same thing.