When I was a young boy, I used a Brownie Hawk Eye and sometimes Dad's Kodak Graphic. As a teen, I developed negatives and printed black and white photos in my family basement. Later on, I developed color prints from slides. From this experience I gained an understanding for the basics in image making, and now have a big appreciation for the ease of the digital darkroom.
Currently I am a retired control system engineer and project manager and have turned my hobby into a full-time pleasure. I love the outdoors, both city and country, and an exploring streak has led to the videos on this site. Composition improvements were pushed by my involvement in camera club competition where one can be just as easily be elated or severely humbled. These camera clubs included the Bridgeport, CT Camera Club (2nd place Group A), Flushing, NY Camera Club (1st place Group A and 1997 Photographer of the Year) and The Photographic Federation of Long Island (Leonard Victor Award Runner Up).
My first 35 mm camera was a Ricoh range finder. Then I went the Canon path starting with the EF followed by AE1, T90 (a classic), EOS A2 and EOS 3. I went digital in 2005 with an EOS l Mark ll and now use am EOS 5D Mk III with a Mk II as back-up. Since I walk and hike to get my images, I travel light with a 17-40 mm, 24-105 mm IS, 100-400 mm IS lenses and 1.4X extender. I use just one filter, a polarizer. Always with me is a tripod, either a light weight for hiking or heavy duty for shooting from the car. These are carbon Gitzos with Really-Right-Stuff quick release ball heads.
My digital darkroom has an Apple Mac Mini, two Dell 24" monitors, Epson 15000 color printer and a Pacific Image Prime Film XEs scanner. Software for scanning is SilverFast 8; for editing Apple's Aperture and Adobe Photoshop; and for videos iMovie and Kizoa. Backup consists of four WD hard drives and an APC1500 UPS. In the field I back up my images and videos with a WD My Passport drive. After creating my videos, they are uploaded to Vimeo where they can be converted to phone, iPad or monitor viewing. To design this site, I used Squarespace.
I live in Morristown, NJ with my wife, Isabel and our Maltese, Buddy. From experience I have concluded that the best way to improve your image making is to shoot, shoot and shoot. And as for the digital darkroom: save, save and save.
In action
Second Beach, Quileute Indian Reservation, Washington
Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington
Carbon River, Olympic National Park, Washington
Pinnacles Overlook, Badlands National Park, South Dakota
Mahoosuc Mountain, Appalachian Trail, Maine
Harriman State Park, New York
Bluff Overlook, Montauk Point State Park, New York
Burns Basin Overlook, Badlands National Park, South Dakota
Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, Arizonia
Notable Images
"Twin Tower" - Photographic Federation of Long Island 1997 Runner Up
"Icy Going" - Flushing Camera Club 1996 Image of the Year
"Sunflower Burst" - Flushing Camera Club 1997 Image of the Year
The logo is the face of a photographer. The left eye tightly closed (the letter k), the right eye open (the letter a) to look through the view finder (with the dot from the i as the pupil). The circle shape completes the rest of the photographer's head and it also represents the camera lens/aperture. Making the "i" for "image" black helps the viewer piece together the fragmented letter form making the initials "a k i" easier to see. Logo was designed by my son, Joe Kayser, Creative Director www.kayserandco.com.