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About Gordon Kilgore
It was during these years that I put more effort in stock photography and added several medium format systems to my photo gear. I am still represented by Look South http://www.looksouth.com in Atlanta. However, I no longer try to sell my work and photography is only for fun these days. Buying my first digital camera in 2001, a Nikon Coolpix 5000, I took it to Antarctica in 2002. On that Antarctica trip I used both digital capture and Nikon F5 with slide film. My eyes were opened to the digital capture world. The Coolpix 5000 had a number of limitations, particularly the lag time of the shutter release. So in early 2002 a couple of Nikon D100 bodies were purchased. Other than the view camera, I have been completely digital since that time. It was not until 2007 that sold my wet darkroom equipment and view camera. Both had been gathering dust. A progression of cameras followed the first Coolpix: Nikon D70, D100, D2X, D2Xs, D300, and D3. For a lightweight simple travel kit, I will pair the Nikon D300 body with an AF-S Nikon 18-200mm 3/5-5.6 G ED VR lens. This is carried in a Tamrac back pack that also accommodates a laptop computer. My basic travel setup will include the above as a LowePro backup. I will take a Nikon D3 with the following items:
For the above gear I rely on several different LowePro backpacks. Depending on whether I am driving or flying and the nature of my trip I will make some slight changes or add to my gear. For instance if weight is a consideration I might take a lighter Gitzo Tripod. If I am going to be photographing wildlife I would certainly take a longer lens such as the Nikon AFS 200-400 f/4 G VR lens. A macro lens such as the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 or 200mm f/4 might be included. Sometimes a heavier Gitzo carbon fiber tripod will be utilized. In most cases I take a laptop computer and one or two external hard drives. RAW is used exclusively and Adobe Lightroom is used to download, catalog, and process my image files. If additional work is needed that will be done with Adobe Photoshop CS3. I am a retired entrepreneur and have been married to Margaret Hudson Kilgore of Fairburn, GA since 1960. Over the years we have owned and operated family shoe stores, men’s clothing store, motorcycle racing accessory business, amusement game business, real estate holding as well as oil and gas wells. I have always loved to travel but businesses have limited my time to be away. Now the only constraints are time. I have traveled to all 50 states, all 7 continents, and 169 countries. Margaret joins me on most trips. She does, however, refuse to go on adventure trips or where the conditions are very cold or very hot. These I must do alone. Many countries I have visited several times. India five times, Russia eleven times and Antarctica four times, come to mind. Each country has something to offer. Some countries more than others but I find if I visit with an open mind and open eyes, I will not be disappointed. It seems to me though, that travel photography is perhaps one of the hardest types of photography. You are only there a limited time, you must deal with the weather that is present at the time of your arrival, and you can’t easily keep going back until you get it right. Therefore, I have developed an attitude of making the best of the hand I have been dealt and hopefully returning another time in another year when the conditions are different. Should I arrive at a destination in hopes of photographing big scenic vistas or architectural monuments in grand setting and be greeted with a very overcast day and light showers, I would be very disappointed. Instead one must shift expectations and instead look for nature close-ups, architectural details such as doors and windows. This could be an excellent day to photograph people in their living environment. When the weather is miserable, interior photography becomes much more appealing and is easier since high contrast will not be such a concern. With this being said I have made a major change in my approach to photography. In most cases I no longer go seeking a specific subject but just go and photograph what I see. One tip that I received years ago was to always look behind me. Often the best shot is not the one that initially caught your eye but the one that is behind you. Making the most of any situation reminded me of something that I heard twenty years ago. At a workshop someone asked John Shaw what lens he should use in the present situation. John asked what lens the person had with him. When the man replied John said that was the lens he should use. Travel photography can be very similar. What opportunity does this day present? This is what should determine today’s subjects. Nothing beats an open mind and open eyes. I recall recently being on a riverboat in Romania. We were traveling up the Danube and I was the only one taking pictures. Finally, a woman just had to ask me what in the world I was photographing. I showed her the wonderful reflections in the water near the shore. These were beautiful abstracts displaying fall colors and buildings reflecting in the river. She was looking for scenic pictures not abstracts. The lady was thrilled at the array of new subject matter to photograph and began taking picture after picture. So in summary I suppose that photography gives me an excuse to travel. I photograph the subject that I like and photograph for me only. I find too that by taking pictures and notes, I get much more out of any trip. The editing procedure at home serves to reinforce my memory of each trip. This brings us to editing? Presently each digital capture is a RAW file that is downloaded every night to a laptop and backed up on an external hard drive. The only editing done on the road is to delete those files that have major problems. I do try to caption as many as possible while traveling. By using embedded metadata I now take notes by writing in a small notebook the time next to the name of the subject. This makes captioning much more precise. When clicking on an image file the metadata is displayed in a box to the right. By seeing the day and time of exposure, and referring to notes the image can be identified exactly. Back home all digital capture files are transferred to a desktop computer’s hard drive, where I finish editing and captioning. With this completed I then transfer all files to another Maxtor hard drive for archival storage. The next step is to make a collection of RAW files that I consider the best or “keepers”. These are the ones that I will actually spend time making adjustments. This goes very quickly in Lightroom which even allows bulk adjustments. At the end of a recent trip I randomly selected 100 images and of that group only nine required work in Photoshop. The years of training using not only 35mm but medium format and large format transparency file honed metering skills that now save a lot of time with digital capture. By making the best digital exposure initially, considerable time is saved at the end of the work flow. The camera histogram is my best friend during the capture process. Photodex Corporation’s ProShow Gold is my slideshow of choice. It is now time for another trip. Many times editing has not been completed from one trip before the next trip begins. That way I never get bored and run out of something to do. |
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Picture Perfect
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I began photographing seriously in the late 1970’s. At that time my interest was mainly nature photography. Over a period of several years I read many books and attended a few local workshops. It was in the fall of 1985 that I finally figured out metering and began to really see “light”. This was in Michigan at a workshop by John Shaw and Larry West. This workshop was definitely my big turning point in being able to control my photography. Over the next ten years I attended a number of workshops. A few that come to mind are Freeman Patterson, George Lepp, architecture at the Maine Photographic Workshop, Winona with Steve Simmons. I also attended workshops with Bruce Barnbaum, Howard Bond, and John Sexton. As you can see my focus slowly shifted from nature to architecture and large format. With a Linholf Technikardan 4X5 view camera I also developed a strong interest in black & white printing. Several years ago I took a count and had read 87 books on various aspects of photography. So, in summary, my training has been reading books, attending workshops, and getting out in the field with the cameras.