About Us
As a child, maybe 12 years old, I had my first experiences with the beautiful art of photography. I was given an AGFA Box 50 Camera as a gift, and it opened my eyes to see the world beyond the ordinary. The camera used a 6x9 format film and shot in B&W. It was very exciting.
The initial results were hardly worth mentioning, but the activity left a lasting impression and cemented in me the desire to capture what I envisioned. As the years progressed, I learned and practiced, and started to find my stride with the AGFA.
Many years later I purchased an Edixa Prismat LTL camera, with Schneider lenses. This was my first 35mm film camera, and the journey into the vast realm of bodies, lenses and accessories had begun.
This camera required “real photography”; meaning measuring light and focusing the lens, taking into consideration the composition of the scene and color harmony; which at first were mostly accomplished by feeling and emotional response to the viewed subject.
Photography magazines started to become published which showcased inspirational works by the masters, artists like Ansel Adams and Léonard Misonne, among many others. Their work gave me a path to the style I would eventually identity as my own.
What started with the original AGFA 50 blossomed into a lifelong passion involving an endless learning process, discovering new technologies in camera systems and lenses, expanding styles and production options. This process keeps the mind young since learning is inherent to youth. From point and shoot to highly intricate systems, always advancing my knowledge of technical aspects and picture composition, with today utilizing Lightroom instead of the “Dunkelkammer” helps tremendously to produce the exact image I see in my “mind’s eye”.
The genre of photography I most identify with is landscapes and nature; it excites me to capture a fleeting moment in time, a scene in nature which exists for the blink of an eye. These moments motivate a positive outlook in the viewer and demonstrate an ideal beautiful world, creating harmony of the soul and the mind.
My goal for landscape and nature photography is to inspire a sense of harmony with life and to recognize the beauty of nature as God’s gift to humanity. And I am very blessed that I can share this love of nature with Elsa my partner and wife.
Elsa’s love of photography stems from years of education and work in the field of the arts. Growing up within a family of painters, her father (Allda-Eugen de Bruycker) and her grandfather (Hermann de Bruycker) come from a long line of Flemish artists. She was always surrounded by colors, canvases, and creation. She learned from her father and being inspired by her ancestry, would paint in oil colors to create her visions. Working in the film industry in Germany and then later in the U.S., allowed Elsa to travel a lot in her career and to take in many different scenes of nature, from lush green forests to barren deserts to impetuous oceans.
Elsa’s passion for painting evolved to photography, being a faster medium to convey her creations. For many years we traveled with an RV, visiting lots of beautiful locations. Elsa’s love of nature is deeply engrained, and the pleasure of creating photographic art is for both of us a great thrill.
But the greatest honor is when someone enjoys the beauty of nature and life through our art.