Jason Stengren

(cross-posted to DeviantArt.com – http://jstengren.deviantart.com)

My photography obsession began in high school… I took a lame photo class as an elective (this was Los Angeles, mind you) where we learned how to develop 35mm film in the darkroom. Assignments were ill-conceived and half-assed, at best. “Go take a picture of someone playing sports.” was one, “Take a picture of something with sharp contrasting lines.” was another. There were crushes to be had, friends to be made, and since it was the last period of the day… shortened school-hours to be had.

On to college where my dad let me borrow his manual Nikormat SLR. That was an interesting beast. Manual rewind, shutters as loud as your bedroom blinds falling unexpectedly in the middle of the night… but wow, the photos were incredible. I lived in Humboldt at the time (see Arcata, CA), home of the redwoods, hippies, and mud. I took a few field-trips with my dad’s camera into the various hiking trails surrounding the city and experimented with the finer aspects of technical photography – namely aperture and shutter speed. I also fell in love with macro photography, abstracting the hell out of anything I ran into. I took quite a few nice fern shots w/shadows, dew drops, ocean shots, and the likes.

After moving up here to Portland, I bought my first digital camera – a Casio Exilim subcompact – and visited my friend back in Humboldt. I told him, “Lets go somewhere cool for a photo shoot.” We ended up at this weird junkyard near the bay where someone(s) had left tractors, car bits, etc. This is how I got my start in urban decay photography. If you framed a shot just right, you could accurately convey the lonliness and isolation of these machines, standing alone in the Northern California coastal mist, rusting, and being slowly, steadily overthrown by the sands of time. I loved it.

I purchased a couple other cameras after that Exilim, briefly joining the megapixel war frenzy, and eventually ended up at the Fujifilm F30 subcompact. This camera, my friends, is fucking amazing. If you ever want a subcompact that takes awesome photos, has full aperture and shutter speed controls, excellent night time capability, and low low noise… this is the toy for you. I’ve used the F30 for countless club nights, raves, outdoor events, parties, and random photography wanderings. Unfortunately, I eventually ran into a wall in terms of what I could get out of this camera. I wanted those beautiful shots I saw on Deviant Art and Flickr, with the saturated colors and near-absent noise.

I sunk my tax rebate into my very first DSLR, a Nikon D40x, and I’m in love. No doubt, I’m absolutely baffled by the amount of setups and features available, but the quality of the photos is amazing. I’ve created my first working portfolio using this camera, and have also become intimately familiar with Adobe Lightroom – an excellent digital photo archiving/editing application. My very first gallery is on June 19th at a local pub called Green Dragon, and who knows what’s next!

For now, I’m just gonna play around here on Deviant Art and find other like-minded photographers to chat with. If you have any hints/tips on how to find cool spots for urban decay style photography, let me know! Right now, I just pick a direction and drive… hoping to stumble across something good.