2017 was the biggest year of my life. After five years of hard, unglamorous toil breaking into the freelance world, this was the first year that it felt like my life was finally falling into place. In that time, Lexie and I ended our relationship (on mutual, supportive terms and we're very happy for each other), my personal business grew a ton, I helped begin a new business with some of my best friends (Markham Park Studio), I travelled to 25 different states, spent over 100 days traveling, slept on over 50 couches, worked on my first union feature film, and saw my nephew come into the world. Along the way I captured many of these moments, and I decided to publish them here as a sort of photo essay to chronicle a pivotal year. Or perhaps it's more of a journal of reality as I lived it. Either way, please enjoy these images of my wildest and most fulfilling year yet, presented chronologically. 

White Rock, AR - 10x30 - $50

Mount Nimbus, CO - 8x12 - $25

Cannon Beach - 8x12 - $25

Hanksville, UT - 8x12 - $25

Guthrie, TX - 8x12 - $25

Saguaro NP, AZ - 13x20 - $50

Alazan Bayou, TX - 13x20 - $50

Virgin River, UT - 13x20 - $50

Hidden Canyon, UT - 13x20 - $50

Maumelle River, AR - 13x20 - $50

Pecos River, TX - 13x20 - $50

San Simon, AZ - 13x20 - $50

White Sands, NM - 13x20 - $50

White Rock Sunset, AR - 13x20 - $50

Stehekin Valley, WA - 13x20 - $50

Falls Creek, WA - 13x20 - $50

Stehekin River, WA - 13x20 - $50

Dungeness Spit, WA - 13x20 - $50

Fall Creek Falls, WA - 13x20 - $50

Lufkin, TX - 13x20 - $50

Secret Falls, NY - 16x20 - $50

Lake Sam Rayburn, TX - 13x20 - $50

Coyote Gulch - 13x20 - $50

McGregor Mountain, WA - 13x20 - $50

Peek-A-Boo Canyon, UT - 13x20 - $50

Thank you for viewing my gallery! If you are interested in ordering a print, please refer to the text at the top of the page. Happy Holidays! 

I have some visible professional work you can find right now below is a link to a music video that I did camera work on. Not a huge fan of the music or some of the editing choices, but I'm very happy with my camera work that made the cut. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFK3v1OLJFY

I'd say October was an excellent month. I could share more, but I have to drive to Stuttgart, then get back and ready for Nashville! My prints will appear in two exhibitions In November. A group show in Little Rock (info below) and solo show of my landscapes in Lufkin TX. Be on the lookout for updates on both of those and much, much more. I hope you enjoyed this! 

As many of you know, I've been an in-house photographer/videographer for a local hospital network, but beginning in January I'll be 100% self-employed. In the past I've had to turn down a lot of work I wanted to do simply because I didn't have enough time, so I'm excited to be making this step. Part of this step is updating my website! Please, take a look around. And if you're here for the first time, welcome! Please comment or message me so we can get to know each other. 

-Don't beat yourself up when you are lazy

-Photograph things you love

-Photograph things you hate

-Photograph anything you feel strongly about

-Photograph yourself

-Don't force a project into existence 

-Be receptive to projects when they present themselves

-Remember that photography lends itself to the moment

-Capture moments

-Use the frame to show why moments matter

-Tell stories

-Capture people

-Capture exactly what you see

-Your eye knows better than you do

-Trust your intuition

-Don't overthink it

-Be honest with the subject

-Be honest with the audience 

-Be honest about who you are

-Your best photos are taken when you're at your most vulnerable

-Don't despair 

-You're doing pretty well

-Maybe get a haircut 

I thought it would be helpful to write a little bit about my prints. Whether I am being commissioned for a portrait, landscape, or conceptual art, it makes me glad to provide my clients with the best product possible. I mostly use photographic print processes (rather inkjet prints) on archival quality papers. For prints I do not make in house by hand, I only use the best photo labs in the country. It also makes me glad to provide a diverse array of printing processes to give your print its own personality. Below are some of the processes I currently offer.

COLOR

For color prints, I work closely a fine-art printing service in New York City that provides C-type printing. C-type (or Lambda) prints are made photographically by exposing light-sensitive papers to lasers which are then developed in a lab using traditional wet processes. Unlike inkjet prints, C-type prints retain full color value. One square inch of a C-type print holds over 60 million colors rather than the 256 colors found in a square inch of an inkjet print. This accuracy produces subtlety for the image that is unattainable by conventional printing processes. I also have my color images printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Deep Matte paper to assure the longevity of the print.

BLACK & WHITE

For B&W images that are captured digitally and for prints from film that are too large for me to produce in-house, I work with a small print shop in Massachusetts that provides large format gelatin silver printmaking. What the C-type print is for color, gelatin silver is for black and white. One gets a seamless gradient of contrast rather than getting the 256 levels of contrast (steps between total black and total white) found in an inkjet print. For both C-type and gelatin silver printing vs inkjet printing, I like to use the analogy of listening to a record on a hi-fi system vs listening to an mp3 on a car radio: both are good, but the former is more subtly detailed and more accurate to how the artist wants you to experience his/her work. My gelatin silver prints are made with fiber paper or resin-coated paper, depending on my clients' needs.

ALTERNATIVE PROCESS

For clients who want something truly unique, I can be commissioned to make prints using alternative processes. Alternative processes are historical printing processes from the 19th century. These processes are very hands on and no two results will be identical. Some of the alternative processes I can provide are cyanotype, Van Dyke Brown, and platinum-palladium. Many alternative processes can be made on a variety of media including cloth, metal, glass, and wood.

If you have any questions about my printing processes, want to commission a print to hang in your home or business, or are interested in booking me for a session, email me at craigwynn90@gmail.com.

Hello friends! I'd like to officially announce that I'll be offering head shot specials for March and April!

Headshot/portrait sessions begin at $100 include a one-hour studio or location session and three high-resolution edited images of your best takes.

If interested, email me at craigwynn90@gmail.com or contact me by phone at 501-831-9966.

Nobody...

For the first time out of my countless times to climb Pinnacle Mountain, I had the entire place to myself. From the moment I left my car at 6:30am until I returned at 10, I was alone. It was great!

Perhaps it's the throngs of pedestrians wearing baggy jeans and/or flip-flops I usually see in this park that have caused me to see this peak as a bit emasculated. Between the fresh snow and the solitude, I was able to see the beauty in this local promontory while having a surprisingly fulfilling outing.

My route mostly followed the East Summit Trail with a 4th class variation following flakes from the outcrop that begins on the south side of the boulder gully. I followed them for a while before traversing across the slabby south face until connecting with the direct-to-summit ridge above the West Summit Trail.

Descending was a little tricky. I started down the East Summit Trail, but I found the snow-covered talus slow going and took an accidental glissade down 25'-30' of slab with the first alternative route I tried. Though I busted my bottom, it was admittedly fun. I opted to return to the 4th class flakes where I descended using some rope I brought along.

Never would I have expected to have such an adventurous time on Pinnacle. I definitely wouldn't recommend for many people to try hiking it in the snow; I wore mountain-specific clothing that kept me warm and dry, and I would've easily slipped and gotten hurt if not for attachments to my boots for added traction. That said: it may have been one of the most fun mornings I've had in a while.

2014 was a very fruitful year for me as an artist. Here are a few of my favorite documentary moments that have only been shared on Instagram until now:

Also, some recent fine art photos.

Goals for this year:

-Get a photo essay published

-Get a photo published to a nationally circulating magazine

-Get fine art photos published

-Study figure/pose

-Photograph more models

As for the last goal: if any of you reading this would like to meet up and be photographed (regardless of any level of skill or experience), please contact me!

Well, that's Alex Honnold. He's a personal hero of mine and the most famous climber in the world (for good reason). I got to take photos of him and many other cool people two weeks ago at 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell.

24HHH was possibly the most fun event I've shot. Last year I made a little video of it. However, doing stills liberated me of crew and equipment and allowed me to cover more ground, find more stories, and feel more relaxed all the while. You can check my gallery of images from 24HHH here.

But for all the shots of people crushing that I worked for, it's this portrait I took of my friend Aaron Baka shortly after the end of the competition that I'm perhaps most proud of.

It was a chance encounter. I was walking down the road towards my campsite after photographing people turning in their scorecards when I happened upon Aaron resting in the shade on the tailgate of a truck. As we talked I noticed the elements one by one: how haggard my friend look, the quality of the diffused light on him, and his eyes catching some direct light.

I asked if I could take his portrait and he was kind enough to consent. As I framed the shot I began seeing more elements: his blue shirt, the red truck, and the blown-out grass making a sort of pale yellow rounded out a primary color scheme. The punch of green in the top-left of the image complimenting the red while being analogous to the yellow and blue worked out better than I had anticipated. What's more, Aaron required no direction to give me a face that conveys everything he was feeling at that moment. The moment I captured this particular frame, I knew I had something I'd be very happy with, and I'd say it's firmly among my favorite portraits to have taken.

By the time you're reading this I'll be in Washington State. Is there anything there you fine readers think I should try to capture? Places I'll visit include Seattle, Olympia, and Stehekin (North Cascades National Park).

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]]>DocumentaryActivismCraig WynnWed, 24 Sep 2014 22:25:52 +0000https://www.craig-wynn.com/blog/peoplesclimate5418bebce4b0c53517889fa4:5418c77ee4b07990c7fc8c43:542246f1e4b052d76df10093

A couple weeks ago I was talking to a friend at my regular coffee shop who told me about the People's Climate March. I expressed my interest in documenting it, contacts were made, and I was given the the opportunity to take photos at the demonstration on Sunday. I never before had the chance to capture such a large event, so I was game to give it a go despite the 50-hour round-trip bus ride.

Reports came my way that 100,000+ people were to gather to demonstrate prior to the U.N. climate summit. The purpose of their gathering was to get the attention of U.N. leaders and deliver the message that the public wants renewable energy resources and wants to cut dependence on fossil fuels. Though I was sympathetic to the cause, I wasn't quite sure if I would have demonstrated had I not been there to document.

What I witnessed was truly surprising. Not only was the demonstration of 1960's proportion, 3-4 times larger than predicted, but it was perhaps the most diverse event I have ever been too. It was impressive to me that so many people groups represented in unprecedented numbers spanning age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religious and political affiliation, and nationality could all ban together for the cause of conservation. There was a constituency of every imaginable type.

The March was a melting pot unlike anything I had seen before. There were Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheist; Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Communists; elderly, youth, disabled, abled.  According to the all messages I was given as a child in America, it was a perfect example of all the good things about this country.

From the indigenous peoples to the feminists, this ever-eclectic group seemed to share a sense of urgency for the matter they were all concerned over: the fate of our planet. It's no wonder, either. As I traveled with a group from Little Rock to the March, we made a stop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: one of the Department of Energy's largest research facilities. There we listened to several lectures from leading climate researchers who gave a grim report, which, in short, showed that major change is taking place in the Earth's oceans and weather systems. They also informed us that it will require considerable and immediate change in mankind's fossil fuel habit for there to be any hope to slowing such changes.

Remember when the Tea Party took off? Their rallies would range in attendance from several hundred to a few thousand, and they were everywhere in the media. Considering this, it seems strange that 300,000-400,000 people could peacefully unite for a common cause and major media sources barely mention it. No reporters on the ground. No man-on-the-street interviews. No exposés.

What more can really be expected, though? Big media requires big money, and that big money is sourced from big businesses– most of which rely on the same carbon-heavy practices the activists at the People's Climate March wish to see abolished. It seems unlikely that major media sources will ever find it in their interest to give such a movement the coverage it deserves given its relevance.

In its infancy, the Tea Party was just a group of far right extremist, and that gave them a polarizing quality that could be used to the advantage of conservative media or liberal media. It was all in the spin a given source put to a story. The People's Climate March saw too diverse a group galvanized on too universal an issue to be spun to the advantage of the Left or the Right. So, kind of awkwardly, major media sources merely recognized that there was a large march about climate change, and that was it.

I would encourage everyone to remain informed about climate change and what world leaders are doing about it. With the internet, we not only have access to such information, but we also have a mechanism to voice our concern on the matter and implore our leaders to take it seriously. This was an enlightening trip, and I now believe this demonstration and others like it to be crucial to provoking real change in our approach to ecological issues.

Howdy! Thanks for checking out my website and my blog. I'll posting updates about photos I take, work I do, and my travels.

The above picture was captured on the first roll of film I shot with my Olympus 35RC –a camera that has since been a mainstay in my everyday bag. It was given to me by my friend Caleb before he left on a three-month backpacking trip across Asia. He complained of a light leak which I've found to be totally manageable, but I believe he gave it to me as a sort of consolation for me not being able to join in the fun. When he gave it to me he said,  "I think it spent some time at the bottom of a lake." Though it might not be as cool as traversing a continent, I've managed to capture some of my favorite images on it. So, thanks Caleb!

Do you have a camera with a fun story? Tell me about it in the comments!

Also, I'm interested in knowing what sort of photos you want to see. Tell me a subject or technique you'd like to see me attempt and maybe I'll take the challenge!