Old Maps Reborn Into Digital Life

Preserving vintage maps Abraham Ortelius's Maris Pacifici
Michael Jennings and Cecilia Malaguti are the couple behind Neatline Maps, a vintage and rare map dealer in the San Francisco Bay Area. They came to The Image Flow to make a digital archive of their collection—which consists currently of over 300 maps—both for their online store, and as a way to preserve the maps and the stories they represent. The reproductions are being made with TIF’s medium format Hasselblad, which offers extreme resolution and sharpness.
Michael and Cecelia became interested in maps through their training as archaeologists—Michael works for the nonprofit Center for Digital Archaeology in Marin. They started out collecting a few maps they particularly enjoyed, but a year ago, they decided to turn their hobby into a business.

Getting to the Heart of Slow Food in Umbria

slow food umbria assisi
Stuart Schwartz recently spent three days with his family in Umbria, Italy, as part of a scouting trip for a new workshop next summer focused on the Slow Food movement and the local Italian lifestyle.
“My goal is to create a workshop in which we’ll create an accurate portrait of Umbria—the people, lifestyle, landscape, and architecture—but also get an intimate experience of what it’s like to actually live in Umbria, if even for only a short time,” writes Stuart.

Gallery Presents Tribute to Iconic SF Photographer Ken Graves

Two Businessmen, SF, Ca, 1971 Gelatin silver print, 7 ¾ "× 11 ½ ", Matte 16"× 20"
Photographer and collage artist Ken Graves is best known for his black-and-white street photography of San Francisco at the transition from the 1960s to the 1970s. Graves passed away earlier this year at the age of 74, leaving behind a legacy of more than 50 years of work. Almost two dozen pieces are part of SFMOMA’s permanent collection, and now the Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco has put together a new exhibition, The Home Front, to pay tribute to this great California artist.

Chasing Stars: Don Whitebread’s Night Photography

Star Tracks Over Yosemite Falls Starlight night photography
Don Whitebread owns a decent telescope but admits he’s not much of an astronomer. He bought the telescope to do astrophotography, and then realized it didn’t give him the opportunity to play with time in the way he’d imagined.
“The work I’m doing, I feel like I’m capturing a particular moment. It’s a long moment, but still, it’s a moment in time when these stars happen to line up with this foreground and it creates a composition,” he said.
The work he’s referring to is part of an ongoing collection called Starlight. He shoots mostly with a medium-format Hasselblad and black and white film—digital cameras don’t allow for the type of exposure he’s after. Each exposure requires an exposure of around an hour and a half. The result is a glimpse of thousands of stars moving across the night sky.

TIF Kids Workshops Guide Students to Self Discovery

kids photography workshops
It’s been a busy summer at The Image Flow with two sessions of our Summer Photo Camp for Kids and the Angel Island Summer Photo Excursion. All of these kids photography workshops are geared toward middle school-aged shooters, one of my favorite ages to teach because they’re able to handle more challenging concepts and assignments and they learn so fast.
The goals of the workshops are simple: Teach kids how to use their camera on manual mode and how to do basic post-processing in Lightroom—I find that even my intermediate students benefit from the review and practice of using their cameras with the exercises I give them. In the Angel Island workshop, which is made up primarily of students that already have some photography experience, we do some work with Photoshop as well.

Photography Brings Hope to Camp Hope

Camp Hope Looking Glass Photo
Jeff Greenwald, an Oakland-based photojournalist, author, and founder of the nonprofit Ethical Traveler, has been photographing in Nepal since 1979. He first visited Camp Hope, one of Kathmandu’s most progressive earthquake refugee camps, in the fall of 2005.
“One of the kids—a very smart and completely charming 10-year-old girl named Laxmi Sherpa—asked to borrow my camera … such a request would normally give me pause. But Laxmi had impressed me with her honesty and sense of responsibility—so I handed it over,” said Jeff.
That afternoon was the beginning of his project with Looking Glass Photo. The idea was simple: Provide cameras to the children Camp Hope and teach them how to document their daily lives.

James Clift on “Assignment Discipline” in Intermediate Photography

Intermediate photography james clift 05
Balancing your photographic pursuits with the ups and downs of daily life can be a difficult task. Keeping pace with a photography series requires not only dedication but also a clear direction to ensure building success. Here, workshop student James Clift talks about how creative assignments with concrete deadlines can help expand the horizons of the intermediate photographer.

Liz Caroli: Chasing the Light

Mystical Cloud Cover Tennessee Valley
Liz Caroli is a recently retired teacher with a newfound passion for photography, but looking at her photographs, you might think she’s been shooting for a very long time. However, she bought her first “real camera” barely three years ago. She credits her rapidly improving skills behind the camera to hard work and the excellent teaching skills of the instructors at The Image Flow.
Her first initial impetus to pursue photography came during a trip to Belize. On a side trip to Half Moon Caye National Monument, Liz snapped a few shots of a flock of birds flying overhead.

7 Tips for Building and Sharing a Professional Photography Portfolio

photographer portfolio print presentation
As a commercial photographer, workshop instructor, and owner of The Image Flow, Stuart Schwartz is no stranger to the portfolio review—and he’s sat on both sides of the table. Here he offers his tips for building your portfolio for success. First and foremost, there is nothing more impressive than a printed portfolio.
Periodic portfolio reviews are an essential part of any serious photographer’s game plan. They’re a great opportunity to get your work literally under the noses of the right people. But before you submit your work to a professional portfolio review, you’ll want to be sure your portfolio is in the best shape possible.
How does one begin creating a successful artist’s portfolio? The information I will share with you here will be useful to anyone working in fine art or commercial photography, illustration, or art, and who would like to present their work in a professional manner to potential clients, friends, and colleagues.
To be successful, an artist must have a vision, must master the technical skills required in their chosen medium, and have a basic understanding of the art business.

The Story Behind the Ice Images on the Wall at The Image Flow

Scott Orazem abstract photography ice flows Lake Ontario
Scott Orazem studied photography at the Art Center College of Design in California. He spent fifteen years shooting fashion in Los Angeles before launching a second career in creative direction and brand strategy. Now, Scott is exploring the personal side of his photography with a focus on patterns, textures, and scales found in nature.