top of page
My  Philosophy and Approach
(Getting into the Weeds) 

My general approach to photography is to make my images as high quality as is possible without exaggerating them. With digital photography it  is very easy to make images unreal. With very few exceptions I never do this. You might say why is my image on the home page so grainy then? Because this lends a certain feeling to the image that would not be there if it were not grainy. I do enjoy abstraction as well and graininess that is along these lines.

​

I work with both digital and analog (film) technologies. With film I now usually process the film and then scan it and work on it digitally in both Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. As one would do in a darkroom, modifications are meant to improve the quality of the image but not exaggerate it. Most of my analog photography is done in medium format (2 1/4" x 2 1/4") now  using a Rollie SL66 fully manual camera or large format (4" x 5") using an Arca Swiss Discovery camera. 

​

When I am working in analog I call this "photography in the slow lane" which is a nice place to be at times. It requires slowing down and pondering in great detail what the images will be. I often use Ansel Adam's Zone system with a spot meter when I am in this mode. 

​

The newer digital cameras along with Lightroom and Photoshop provide so many tools to enhance the quality of photographs as compared to the analog methods. They make it so much easier to create phenomenal images (with HDR, for example). (HDR is High Dynamic Range which entails rapidly taking a number of frames of the same image at different exposures and combining them to produce an image with greater latitude of exposures that would not be possible with a single exposure.) As with any technology, there are advantages and disadvantages of each. I really enjoy working in both.

​

Curiosity results in my finding patterns in nature and in the developed world interesting. Thus, I have a section that focusses on "Nature: Patterns and Perseverance". Not only do I find patterns interesting, but also how things grow in such adverse conditions, thus the "Perseverance" part of the title.  One photographer who greatly increased my interest in this part of the field is Brett Weston. He had an amazing eye for such things. It is a whole different approach to seeing.  

Joe Lieber Photography
bottom of page