Note: If you fave my photos — especially my kids,

and you don't have a profile or a photostream, I will block you.

 

If you are interested in purchasing usage rights and full-size digital images, I would be delighted to talk with you! Please contact me.. My images are not free. If you plan to use one of my images in a commercial project, you must obtain my permission and usage rights first, or it is theft. If you would like to use my imagery in a school, educational, or non-profit context, I am very easy to work with. Please contact me

 

about.me/RichTatum...

 

Check out my photo stream via Fluidr!

 

 

I've been making photos since I handed a 35mm camera by a teacher, given access to darkroom, and began spending prodigious amounds of my weekly pay to fund my black-and-white photography habit. This was back in 1985, before digital photography had been invented, when dodging and burning were action verbs, not image editing software commands. I've been shooting ever since, sometimes even getting paid for it. Most of the time, though, I just capture whatever I notice, enjoy, and explore.

 

When I was paid to shoot, I made thousands of photos. When I wasn't being paid, I made mere hundreds. And when finances were tight, I shot nothing.

 

And was sad.

 

Finances are still tight, but in better years (around 2005) I bought my wife a Nikon CoolPix 3200. It's a tiny camera with very few options and no manual control. All this would offend my "artistic sensibilities", of course, except, that little camera could produce some really nice photos. So, of course, I "borrowed" it from time to time, and life is still good because I don't have to pay for negatives, prints, lab-time, paper, or developing chemicals. Or shoeboxes. (At the moment, most of my photostream was made with that camera until early 2008.)

 

In mid-2008 I "upgraded" to a little Sony point-and-shoot that increased my megapixel count (from thee to eight!), but didn't really improve the macro stuff I enjoy so much. (Naturally, shortly after it's purchase, the zoom function broke. So, I'm actually limited to wide-angle and macro by default!)

 

Someday I'll buy, beg for, borrow,or steal a nice negative scanner and put my old black and white stuff online. But for now I get to subject you to my digital macro/closeup fetish and random pictures of my kids. And, someday, I also hope to be able to afford a real 35mm format SLR digital camera.

 

One can always dream...

 

For more about my photographic journey, see my blog post:

 

"Making Art: photography, my gallery, and a rambling discourse"

 

Trivia:

 

I'm a Pentecostal blogger (yes, it's true, some of us do use cameras when not swinging off of chandeliers!) living in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Cascade, Michigan, actually). I served as the first webmaster for the General Council of the Assemblies of God, was project manager and Internet Operations manager for Christianity Today International, and most recently served there as online media managing editor for CTCourses.com (a CTI property) where I learned to edit digital video. I also worked briefly as marketing and media director for a large Assemblies of God church just outside Nashville, Tennessee. I am currently serving as Word of Mouth Strategist at Zondervan, a Christian book-publishing house in Grand Rapids, Michigan, owned by HarperCollins (in turn, owned by NewsCorp).

 

I'm in love with my wife and delighted by my children. I would sell my eye-teeth for a decent dSLR. My wife and kids are my fortune. My eye-teeth are not.

 

To track me down, visit my about.me page.