Bram Kristel
Profile
After my study English at the university, that I left prematurely, I decided, after travelling around a couple of years to start a career in business. Buying and selling all kinds of things. About 1985 I had a burnout. An attractive alternative for dealing and scheming seemed to be nature photography, inspired by the work of Elliot Porter, Ansel Adams and guys like that.
Of course I had no idea what to expect, how difficult it might prove to be. My main purpose, at first , to share my experiences with my friends, relatives, etcetera. My first camera was a Canon A1with a slowly expanding collection of lenses: 50mm, 50mm macro, 135mm and a F/8-500mm telelens. Like every selfrespecting nature photographer I made slides using Kodachrome 64. A heavy old fashioned Gitzo tripod completed the outfit. Of course this approach has become obsolete from the moment the digital era was introduced. I embraced the freedom it gave to control the entire process. Teaching myself the basics of computering and discovering Photoshop opened a hidden cache of inspiration. Unfortunately the present range of digital lenses is beyond my means so I am forced to limit my subjects.
My first digital camera was a Nikon D70 that I worked with during the next two years. The introduction of the D200 with its many new qualities especially bigger files/ more information, the RAW format, needed to be able to sell your work to publishers or as quality prints. The problem is/was that all the old material shot with the D70 could be thrown in the dustbin because the photographic files didn’t have enough information to satisfy the publishers.
(to be continued)
Groups
Bram Kristel is a member of All Things Orange Artwork Gallery, Yellow Gallery, Abstracts from Nature, Colour Me Vibrant Red!, Fabulous Flowers, Fantasy Art and The Birds.
