David Saums

Mountains-of-the-Sky:  Fine Art Photographic Images by David Saums

Artistic Goals

Photography is a medium that can be used in a tremendous variety of ways portray what one sees.  My specific choice is to create by traditional craft a detailed image of the outdoor world as we see it.  The use of the term craft is meant in the traditional sense, with a very focused effort to provide an image with minimum grain to maximize detail and crispness.  All of my images are made with manual exposure, manual focus, traditional films, and hand-printed.  I prefer to use my own interpretation of exposure and focus for my images.  Black-and-white photography has been my life-long preference.  Many times a scene or image works exceptionally well in color; many images, however, are striking in black and white but not in color.  Railroads and lighthouses, special subjects for many of us, have been a life long preference since 1970.
My fine-art prints, fully framed or ready for framing, can be ordered by telephone.  My images have been purchased for corporate and personal collections around the United States and Canada.

Equipment

I originally used Minolta SRT-102, SRT-202, and the rare XK professional model with a wide variety of lenses.  In 1994, I added a Hasselblad 500C and several of the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lenses.  The Hasselblad 2-1/4" x 2 1/4" format is especially appealing in landscapes and large images; however, so much of my 35mm work involves very slow speed films with minimum grain and high resolution that I find that use of the Hasselblad is the exception.  In 1996, I began using Nikon 35mm equipment, in addition to the Minolta and Hasselblad systems.  This includes 3 Nikon F3HPs and a variety of lenses.  A Nikkor 28mm PC (perspective control) wide angle is an excellent tool for many uses beyond architectural views, for which it was designed.  Other favorites are Nikkor 85mm f /1.4 and 105mm f /2.5 short telephoto lenses.
Films used include: Black-and-white:  Kodak Panatomic-X (until discontinued in 1990); Kodak Technical Pan (shot at ASA 25) - A very fine grain film with incredible sharpness and resolution; Kodak T400CN (since introduction in 1997).  Color transparencies: Kodak Kodachrome 25, 64 and 200, and Ektachrome E100S.  Color negative films (1985 to 1988): Kodak Ektar 25 and Ektar 100; Royal Gold 25 and 100.