Friday, December 14, 2007

Funny How Things Happen

It was the work of Ansel Adams which got me interested in photography back in the late 60's. I taught myself the zone system and B/W printing, his work was and still is an inspiration to me.

Back when I was 18 years old during summer brake, I went shooting along the California coast for a week by myself. I was sitting in my car in a parking lot at Point Lobos State Reserve on the Monterey Peninsula when just behind me, Ansel Adams pulled up in his car with the license plate ZONE V. He was there in the park shooting with Marie Cosindas, they were where testing SX-70 Polaroid film.

It was a thrill for me to meet him and to have him sign the books of his I had with me at the time. What a wonderful experience it was to talk with such a talent, I will never forget that moment.

I bring this up because I've just had another one of those wonderful experiences. Do to a typo in my last post, I received an email (actually 2) from a photographer who's work I have admired for years. That email was signed, Bob Kirst. I thought to myself, this can't be Bob Kirst the photographer, could it? Not many photographers named Bob Kirst you know. I linked to the url listed at the end of his email, and to my surprise it was "The Bob Krist".

Besides pointing out my typo, Bob said that he was a big fan of my blog. Honestly Bob, that blew me away. I've been a big fan of Bob's work for years, I never imagined receiving an email and such a nice compliment regarding my blog. I took this opportunity to pick up the phone and call Bob directly.

We had a wonderful conversation and a few laughs. What a great guy.

Earlier in my career, I found a book that Bob wrote regarding location lighting. The book was an inspiration to me, I learned a lot reading his book. The book title is "Secrets of Lighting on Location". Do yourself a favor and pick up this book if you don't already have it in your library. I've read and re-read this book countless times when learning location lighting. I know you'll enjoy it.

It's strange how life is, you just don't know what the day will bring! It's so wonderful to meet/speak with people you admire, and it was a pleasure for me to visit with Bob Kirst.
DT

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch... I just clicked on your link for that book and there are only 4 used copies ranging from $164.21 to $570.76 at todays exchange rates. Yikes.

That being said. The experience of having someone whom you admire contact you out of the blue and tell you that he like your stuff must be a great feeling.

David Tejada said...

Ashton: Click on that link again, it will take you to Bob's page and than to Amazon USA

Anonymous said...

Given the couple of typos in this post, you must be after a few more emails from other photographers you admire!

Seriously though, the Internet is such an amazing way to connect with people. Only the other day I found a piece of music that I wanted to use for a multimedia piece. Some finger dancing on Google got me the artist and his contact details. I fired off my request asking if I could license one song.

The response: no problems, you can use it. Heck, just for that I went to iTunes and bought his latest album. One good deed deserves another.

I enjoy reading your blog - it has some great content.

Thomas
www.thomaspickard.com

Will said...

Wow, that is great David, thanks for telling the story. I am also a big fan of Bob's work and have met him a couple of times doing workshops. It is a great book, I'll have to read it again. Also- I don't know if they are still available but Bob designed a great camera bag which I still use today.

David Tejada said...

Thanks Thomas for your comments. I agree that the internet is an a amazing place to connect with people.

I glad you read my posts and I will try to continue to provide interesting content.

I find this blogging thing hard to do at times, but very much worth it. It started as a way of keeping track of my jobs & travel and now as a way of sharing my work experiences of young photographer.

I hope you will continue reading as time go's on. Thanks. DT

Freelance fotograaf Jürgen Doom said...

Hi David,
you've got at least one regular reader in Belgium. I enjoy very much your site/blog and it has influenced my photography and - more importantly - helped me to define which way I want to venture into.
I hope you keep up your blog, it's a very interesting rear.

Jürgen
http://fotodoom.blogspot.com
http://www.jurgendoom.be

The website is in dire need for an upgrade, the blog shows what I'm currently doing. Sorry for the flamish language. I'll create a similar blog in English in due time.

Kind regards
Jürgen