I acquired My first SLR camera when I was a teenager growing up in Puerto Rico. It was an old film Minolta SRT-201 which I used in fully manual mode because the primitive needle meter did not work. Living in Puerto Rico, I took plenty of shots of the beach and local environs when I wasn’t surfing or running, but my main interest has always been in telling stories. Unfortunately, I’ve lost many of the shots I took with that old Minolta SRT-201, although I still have the camera. I also fiddled around with an old Olympus 35-SP rangefinder, which helped cement my interest in street, BW, and just the joy of photography. Those early years were wonderfully formative in helping me develop an artistic sensibility (that – and some art school training) and in deepening my interest in telling stories through photography.
After a long break from photography I returned with renewed interest in street scenes, rallies, and social protest themes… but to digital, not film. The move to digital notwithstanding, a friend recently gifted me with a 1949 Leica III-C rangefinder (with a Summarit 50mm, F2.0 Lens) which I’ve just started to explore. I am strongly disposed to documentary work, street photography, and photojournalism — in short, to composing and telling stories through this medium. My first experience at photojournalism came when I was a teenager in Puerto Rico and I chanced upon firefighters trying to put out a fire near where I lived. Luckily, I had my Minolta SRT-201 with me. Unfortunately, I don’t know what ever happened to those shots! I’m also inclined to some artistic exploration, and in particular, given my mindfulness and zen background, the exploration of photography as mindful endeavor (I’m ordained into the Order of Interbeing, a Zen community in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh). This blog is dedicated to exploring iPhoneography, but if you’d like to see some of my other work visit Exposure Latitudes.com.
I’m a professor at the Rhetoric and Media Studies department of Willamette University (a private liberal arts University in Oregon), with interest in public life/discourse, visual semiotics, participatory democratic culture, political identity, and much more. Those subjects complement my interests in documentary, visual narrative, and exploration of new media technology. I also teach within the American Ethnic Studies, and the Latin American Studies programs. Sometimes my students do some simple documentary work in video and as photo essays. My brief guide to photographing social protest and civic activism is used by Prensa Comunitaria as training handbook for their staff members. Click here to download the guide in .PDF.
As introduction, here is a link to a general article on The Scene (Willamette University magazine) treating mindfulness, flow, and attention to the present moment. Here’s a piece on Rohatsu I wrote a while back for Beliefnet.com.
Thanks for stopping by, and if you are interested in iPhoneography, Mindfulness and Photography, or on Social Documentary, Civic Activism work send me a note. (Exposure-Latitudes, my other photo site, is under serious renovation. It’ll be back soon.)
Nacho