The Art of Chris Froelich

Today my goal was to try and get something that was perhaps a little different. Mono Lake is, after all, a widely photographed location with dozens of photography workshops every year and hundreds if not thousands of photographers making their way to this iconic location.  I marvel again and again how blessed I was to be able to spend so much time there, completely alone and with nearly perfect weather.  When I woke up and checked my email, I found out I would be sending off my Nikon F100 to some fortunate soul....that worthy bidder on Ebay would soon have the camera and all 3 lenses. I would have to send it from the post office in Bishop as I made my way to Death Valley. I can say that the Nikon F100 introduced me to what photography should be. Perfect ergonomics, ease of use, an amazing view finder, and the ability to blow through a roll of 36 exposures in 4.5 seconds. Combine that with the insanely affordable manual focus Nikkor lenses out there, and you have a system t...

Still I woke up at 4:30, long before my alarm was set to go off. Unlike previous trips, I didn't have to wake up and go find something to shoot or figure out composition or worry about camera set up, so I didn't set my alarm as early as usual. It would take me about 15 minutes to get to my location, I knew exactly where my tripod would be set up, I knew my aperture, I knew my focal length. The only variable I had left was shutter speed. No I only had to count on mother nature to provide the weather I was counting on. The shot would still be good if it was windy or if there was clouds, but I had something in mind.... I find myself drawn to certain images lately, and have a desire to emulate, but differentiate, from my current inspiration, Michael Kenna. He works with a Hasselblad (square format) using monochrome film and long exposures for a lot of his work. I find, however, that I am not yet good enough for monochrome. It is hard to pre visualize luminosity and I'm ...

Mono Lake and Yosemite  As many of you know, I took another  extended walkabout, this time through the American Southwest including parts of Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah. I was gone about a month, but that time wasn't all spent photographing natures wonder. I also had a nice time visiting with family in Mesa, AZ and Provo, UT. In fact, even though I drove right through the heart of the canyons of Utah, I didn't take a single picture except of my grandkids. In fact, I only had about 7 days devoted to photography. 2 days in Mono Lake, 3 days in Death Valley and 2 days at the Grand Canyon/Sedona. Death Valley was ruled by the wind. It was so windy that I wasn't able to use the 4x5 camera that I had with me and I already wrote about those experiences and posted 35mm snapshots. I now have the rest of my film back, and most of it is scanned, at least at low resolution (6mb flatbed scans). This gives me plenty of resolution for posting online photos.  I arri...