About

CONTACT

  • E-mail - bill (at) br-digiphoto.com or billrogers945 (at) yahoo.com.
  • Telephone - 814.495.7229 (home) or 814.242.7045 (cell)
  • Snail mail - 945 Frankstown Road, Sidman, PA  15955

ABOUT

My photography is primarily dedicated to family, friends, and volunteer activities – working with local people and organizations to create professional-quality images. My goals are to leave a meaningful photographic archive of life in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, to help people take better pictures, and to help others understand and appreciate the power that one great photo can have … and, oh yes!, have some fun, too! Please view Portfolio #1 or Portfolio #2 for a quick introduction to my style and preferences (which, by the way, are constantly evolving).

For links to my photo galleries, return to the Home page. Navigation of this site begins at the home page.

Click here to read about my evil twin, Abby Normal.


RECOMMENDED PHOTOGRAPHY LINKS


PHOTOGRAPHY EQUIPMENT

My primary camera is a Nikon D200. The 18-200mm Nikkor VR lens is terrific for vacations and just walking around. I also have a Tokina 12-28mm wide-angle lens, a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 prime lens, and a Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 prime lens.

I love shooting with fast glass, and that’s why I’m using the prime lenses more often. In addition, they have significantly less optical distortion than zoom lenses … and finally, they’re lighter and less expensive than zooms. My evil twin, Abby Normal, wishes that the Nikkor 85mm lens had VR, but that’s just because he’s so shaky at times.

My backup camera is a Nikon D70 with a 28-200mm Nikkor lens. 

I love the Nikon Creative Lighting System (click HERE to download a PDF booklet from Nikon). I am impressed by the ability and range of the little pop-up flash on the D200 to control the slave flashes. I have two Nikon SB-800 and one SB-600 speedlights, a Photogenic 320 Ws monolight strobe (necessary for times when I need more light than an SB-800 will provide), Manfrotto light stands and boom stands, plus various umbrellas, reflectors, snoots, gels, clips, clamps, bungee cords, gaffer tape, adapters, thingamabobs and whatchamallits.

I routinely use off-camera strobe flash to great advantage, and the Nikon CLS works perfectly within its design specifications. For the instances when the line-of-sight Nikon CLS won’t work, and for triggering the monolight, I also have a Quantum Radio Slave 4i sender and three receivers.

Manfrotto gear has worked well for me. I am pleased with my magfiber tripod, ball head, pro-quality monopod, and light stands/boom stands.

I have two Dell PCs side-by-side. I use the older one for internet surfing; the newer one is for photography. I calibrate both monitors using Huey Pro. I use Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Microsoft Expression Media software.


PHOTOGRAPHERS’ QUOTATIONS THAT I LOVE

Richard Avedon: “All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

Robert Capa: “If your photos aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”

Walker Evans: “Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”

Arnold Newman: “‘Available light’ is any light that’s available.”

Edward Steichen: “No photographer is as good as the simplest camera.”

Edward Weston: “Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.”

Diane Arbus: “I honestly believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”

Diane Arbus: “I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse.”

Dorothea Lange: “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” 

Henri Cartier-Bresson: “We photograpers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can bring them back again. We cannot develop and print a memory.”