Shout Out Series #2: Tracy Tesmer
Tracy Tesmer is a portrait photographer in Houston, Texas. I occasionally listen to Scott Sheppard’s “Inside Analogue Photo Radio” podcast, on which she did an excellent interview. After getting her career started in the music biz in Omaha, she has since started a portrait business in Texas. She also occasionally produces some killer portraits from the cigar-smoking sub-culture.
Tracy doesn’t have a prodigious Flickr stream, but she leaks enough photos onto her blog (sheshootsfilm.com) for you to appreciate her style. What I especially like about her, though, is her dedication to film. She quickly refuses to let you think that she might occasionally shoot a digital camera. (Except for the occasional fun, faux-Polaroid iPhone shot.) She shoots a Mamiya C-330 and a newly-acquired Olympus OM-1. Her blog banner features a Holga, but I don’t know how much she uses it.
Tracy’s portraits are fantastic (and she’s exceptionally skilled at her apparent mastery of C-41 color film) but she’s also a pretty generous individual. After I discovered her Facebook and Twitter presences, she was more than helpful in figuring out what I should charge to start my own portrait micro-business. In the modern age, especially with digital photographers too willing to sell short, it’s very hard to get a sense of what you’re worth. It’s slow getting started, but I do have one friend who’s interested.
Here are some examples of shots from Tracy’s blog, sheshootsfilm.com. Posted here with permission.
Shout Out Series #1: Urban Hafner
Welcome to what I am going to call the Shout Out Series of blog entries. These will (hopefully) be a series of brief blog posts that mention photographers that I’ve met or interacted with (or simply admired) on Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, or some other online presence. Or maybe in the case of super-famous photographers, they’ll be someone I just admire and haven’t interacted with. In any event, I’m going to try to limit the posts to people who use film, at least some of the time. Anyway…
Urban Hafner is a photographer in Heidelberg, Germany. I found him on Flickr after hearing his name mentioned on the Film Photography Podcast. He’s been responsible for making me aware of such cameras as the Voigtländer Vito II, the Fujica GW690, and the Minolta X-300. What I like about his style is that many of his shots seem almost nonchalant at first, as though they were just snapshots. Then the effects of composition, subject, and all that jargon that pro photographers try to talk about sink into your subconscious and you find yourself remembering his shots out of the blue. That ability to make photographs that stick in your head long after you’ve viewed them is the hallmark of a talented photographer.
Check out his blog at: urbanhafner.posterous.com
Here are some examples of his fine work (CC License! I’m not stealing!):
