Skippy: founder of Time/Place Photography
Skippy: founder of Time/Place Photography
About Skippy
Skippy is the founder of Time/Place Photography and enjoys writing about himself in the third person.
Not really.
What is Time/Place Photography?
Time/Place Photography is a division of On The Fly Photography specializing in environmental portraiture. The mission is to provide unique photography of unique people. Time/Place Photography is for those who create. The creation can be personal or professional. It could be family or community. It could be material or spiritual. It doesn’t really matter how you manifest your gift – only that you do. Time/Place photography celebrates your creation, your talent, your contribution.
If you don’t live your life to the tick of a clock then you have created your own Time/Place.
Skippy is an event organizer for Northern Colorado Professional Photographers.
Skippy is a member of and Art Curator for the Cohere Coworking Community in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Time/Place Photography is a top photographer in the Fort Collins, Colorado Professional Photographers guide on MarketingTool.com.
What is the On The Fly Photography you talk about?
On The Fly Photography is about creation from chaos. My style arose from a foundation of minimal equipment & planning. Black and white film, the Zone System, ambient light and location shooting are how I developed my vision. Even when I am working with digital format, studio lighting, controlled conditions and utilizing post-processing on the computer I still aim for the root concept of working On The Fly. To much control crushes creativity and spontaneity. Expectations must come second to improvisation.
How I do it:
Emotional impact – or art as some might call it – is more important than technical perfection.
I compose the image in the camera. Skippy says “Cropping is cheating.” Most of my images are presented full frame. Photoshopping out unwanted elements is cheating. Skippy says “If you take the picture right the first time you don’t have to fix it in Photoshop.” Post-processing with software is used to enhance artistic vision, not to correct mistakes.
Use what I’ve got. Available light. The place I’m in. Anything in my environment becomes a subject. I photograph flowers and objects as I find them. What is there is there. I don’t pretend otherwise. I ask “How can I use this?”
Why I do it:
Photography is my way of making sense of the world and relating my state of mind to others. Photography is my way of making another person smile or cry or think or decide.
I believe images can be complex and layered inspirations for philosophical inquiry. Images can also be meaningless entertaining fluff. Either approach is valid under certain conditions and I embrace both.
I’m serious about what I do. I’m not serious about how I do it.
Press & Media
1. Cover and feature story photographs for the Windsor Spotlight.
Frequently Asked Questions: Time/Place Photography
0. What is an environmental portrait?
An environmental portrait is a portrait of a person or persons or even animals which is taken in a location or in surroundings that help to tell that person’s story. It does not involve that blue/grey background you sat in front of for your school photos. It does involve some aspect of who you are and what you have accomplished which differentiates you from the rest of the world.
1. Why should I pay money to someone named Skippy to take photographs of me or for me?
If you take yourself too seriously you probably shouldn’t. If you don’t mind having some fun with a smile on your face then you should. The most important thing to understand about me is that I am very serious about what I do (photography) but I am not very serious about how I do it.
2. Why doesn’t your web site have flash animation and play obnoxious music which can’t be turned off?
Because those things will only annoy you and slow you down. I want you to find the information you need as quick as you can, evaluate my ability to meet your needs and then act upon that evaluation. I don’t want you to be annoyed by music I like or flash files that take too long to download, or worse yet will not play.
3. What is your formal education in photography?
Formal education? I’ve taken a six college classes in photography and digital manipulation. I don’t put much faith in formal education in photography nor a multitude of other fields. There is something to be gained from academic study of photography. I’ve read a number of books about photography that are fantastic. In the end you can only learn photography by doing photography. Doing photography for a couple of semesters doesn’t really cut it. I’ve been doing this for 24 years and counting. On top of that, lots of my photographs have been terrible. Yes, terrible. Those are the photographs that teach you something. An artist can’t really learn much from his good stuff, but the bad stuff speaks volumes.
4. What equipment do you use for a session?
Depends on the session and what we are trying to achieve. I have three cameras to work with. A medium format film camera, a 35mm film SLR and a digital SLR. Sometimes I use ambient light or I can bring four high-powered lighting instruments.
5. Where do I find details about the cost of hiring you?
Go right here for pricing information for hiring Skippy of Time/Place Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado. Wow, what a blatant self-promotion that was.
6. I don’t see any photographs on your web site that look just like what I want. Why should I consider you for my photographer for a project this important to me?
Of course you don’t see any photographs that look just like what you want. That’s because you are a unique person. The photographs I take for other people, including for myself, can’t look like what you want. Only the images created for you, with you, and by you, can be just like the images you need for your project. That’s why Time/Place is customer centred.
7. What do you mean by customer centred?
I embrace the fact that everyone is different. You have some notion of what sort of portrait you want, even if you don’t know how to engineer that portrait or even how to articulate what you want the final product to look like. That’s my job – to elicit from you the final images as they appear in your mind – then to engineer the technical aspects to create that image. Sure, I’ll toss in some creative ideas as well, yet the final goal is to realize your vision, not mine. That’s why I don’t have any backdrops, nor to I have any guide books called “101 Poses For Boring Portraits”.
8. What is On The Fly Photography?
On The Fly Photography is my outlet for doing fashion, fantasy and fine art photography.
