The Art of Chris Froelich

I am thinking of giving up on digital photography. I hear the siren song of analog (film) photography and manual focus lenses and I'm starting to adjust course.  I got another little push in this direction this week when I found some film in my car that needed to be developed. All of these pictures were taken with an Olympus Stylus Epic that I bought for $1.35 at goodwill. I have 3 more just like it. This particular model of the Stylus is starting to achieve a cult following. It is a totally automatic point and shoot with a fixed focal length of 35mm and a fast f/2.8 lens.  Every one of these pictures was an afterthought. I had the little camera in my pocket and would take some snaps while I was setting up my DSLR or waiting for the perfect light. Out of the 32 pictures on the roll, 5 were completely unusable because of "user error" like the blurry dashboard of the truck because I pushed the shutter as I was pulling it out of pocket or something and the othe...

As I walked about Missoula today, the sun was setting through broken clouds creating what is called "squall light". The light was falling on the hill, but not on the dark sky behind. At first I was just looking at it thinking that while it looked cool, it probably would never photograph well. But I had my camera around my neck with the 100mm Macro already so I took some shots trying to just use form and color for interest.  I was at Kathryn's play, and this was on the wall across the gym. I liked the way it looked but again thought it would probably not really work as a photograph. In fact, the only reason I have this shot is because I used the wall as my neutral grey to set my auto white balance for taking pictures in the gyn for the play. As I looked through the view finder I was thinking "hey, this looks kind of cool." I guess the moral of the story is: Take pictures. It is not like it cost me money to press the shutter. Sure, none of...

Took Jack up to the Mission Valley to cruise around and scout some photography spots. Had mixed luck but enjoyed my time with Jack. Do you remember this barn? I will get a good shot of this barn yet. You can see a little bit of glow on a couple peaks, but a bank of clouds on the western horizon blocked the color from coming over. I am shooting easterly from this vantage point. This is the scene going on behind me about 10 minutes later. Sadly nothing in the foreground of much interest. Tried to get some kind of composition to take advantage of the sunset. Frozen Ninepipes about 20 minutes after the sun went down. I would have liked to get closer to the lake, but I wasn't prepared to walk out on the boggy wetland you see at the bottom. This is about a 15second exposure, so you can see the movement in the clouds. All in all, not a bad trip. The lack of snow for my barn picture is ok. This is a spot I may have to return to many times before I get the shot I know ...

River Ice Abstract , originally uploaded by photo_griz . Just a few more months, but it is agonizing. Here are some winter river snapshots. I was hoping to get something with color at dawn, but drizzly skies prevented anything neat from transpiring in that arena. However, I did remember a spot on the Clark Fork that tends to have ice back up so I stopped by on the way home. The grey sky made the water almost black for a nice contrast. River Ice

I did not expect this when I heard of this endeavor. The thought "what substance will they find in the uploaded narcissism of a self indulged generation" would have come into my mind if I had the time to compose my thoughts they way I do a blog entry. That was, however, the general drift of my opinion. I did not expect to be captured for ninety plus minutes, caught off guard, by a movie about....I don't know what. I guess about life.

Is there anywhere good to eat? I suddenly miss big cities! My brother called yesterday and asked if the Red Iguana would be a good choice in Salt Lake City. YES it would. I ate there a couple times when I was staying with Renn in Provo. I also liked Squatters. I was trying to see if there was any good restaurants in Carson City and was reading good reviews and thinking to myself "wow, there is lots of good restaurants in Carson City and South Tahoe" then I came across the Applebee's reviews. They were like 4.2 stars! Crap, that is what I have to compare good restaurants to? It is not like the Applebee's in Tahoe is any better than any other Applebee's. They are all exactly the same. So according to trip advisor, the world famous steakhouse in Truckee (rating 4.3) is nearly imperceptibly better than Applebee's. The sad thing is that might be true. Every chinese restaurant in Montana has the same supplier/jobber. It is creatively named "Asian Foods...

Well, I received my first official written offer. I had seven interviews and I felt really good about six of them. The one that went bad...Walgreens. That was surprising and disappointing because I have been counting on an offer from Walgreens in Wenatchee for the last couple years. Also, it was my first interview so my internal dialog went right down the crapper. But the interviews kept getting progressively better and by my last interview things were looking up. I expected someone to set the hook, but not within a couple of days. My first official offer is from a highly reputable national chain in Carson City, NV. Carson City is the closest (big) city to Lake Tahoe and the Desolation Wilderness. My commute limit is 20 minutes. That means a 30 minute drive to Heavenly and 15 minutes to the lake. I have to admit that Carson City was not my first choice, but not because it isn't awesome. Mostly because there never seems to be openings close to Tahoe, so I never really looked in...