Print Greeting and Note Cards for Profit. Part 1
By Christine Pentecost— The greeting and note card business is booming despite the ease of sending digital cards. Hallmark’s slogan sums up the difference between the two. An emailed card is a half-hearted gesture, but “when you care to send the very best” only a paper card will do. It shows you’ve taken the time to give your recipient a warm and personal feeling when they open the envelope. About 12 years ago, I decided to...
Posts You May Have Missed This Past Year
To Our Red River Paper Blog Visitors This past year has been a tumultuous one with big news stories breaking almost daily and folks scrambling to re-arrange their schedules each time new Covid guidelines were announced. We’ve picked some great posts for your reading pleasure in case you missed them the first time around. All of us at Red River Paper wish you… A Happy, Prosperous and Healthy New Year! Nikola...
New Photo Project Book Really Delivers!
By Albert Chi— Despite its quirky title, this new photo book by Chris Gatcum will introduce you to a plethora of projects, allowing you to achieve creative mastery of the digital photography medium…stuff you’ve always wanted to do but never quite figured out how. The subtitle of the book is “52 weekly projects to make you a better photographer” but don’t mistake this for the usual run-of-the-mill book of its kind; it’s way better. The...
Favorite Photo Places: The Great Smoky Mountains
By Ron Wolfe and Will Keener— To be sure, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a place for all seasons, but autumn is especially spectacular! The park’s allure is particularly strong in the fall, as Mother Nature uncovers yet another set of delights. There’s a reason that photo workshops, pros, and enthusiasts all head for these mountains in the late days of October and early November. It’s also a time when the park sets...
Kodak’s Coloramas Still Resonate 30 Years Later
By Arthur H. Bleich— Back in the 1950s I used to take the subway from Brooklyn (where I lived) into Manhattan (“The City”) to go to concerts, museums and other attractions and also made frequent trips for art and music lessons and nighttime fun. Parts of my borough were still semi-rural; just a decade earlier, cows grazed nearby my home. As I grew up all the excitement, except for the Brooklyn Dodgers, was across the river. It took...
Back To Basics: Quick ‘n Easy Print Framing!
By Peter E. Randall— Based on nearly sixty years of experience, I believe there are two major elements to photography. The first part is the making of an image, whether on film, digital or smartphone. The other aspect is what to do with it. Today, internet programs such as Instagram or Facebook appear to be the prime destinations for digital images. This may be momentarily satisfying, but it does nothing for the long-term appreciation...
Collect Iconic Photos For Fun and Profit
By Albert Chi— Classic and contemporary photos by photographers have become a staple at auctions and all you need to get in on the action and bid is your cellphone. But even if you don’t want to participate, viewing the images up on the block can be a fascinating pastime and you can enjoy looking at a range of work from the beginning of photography to the present. In fact, at one auction house, you can also look at past auctions and...
Your Scanner Invites You to Create Exquisite Images
by Janet Dwyer— Often people who see my exhibition prints are floored by the larger than life detail, then stunned when told my ‘camera’ is a scanner. Scanners create some unique effects due to their myopic vision, wrap around quality of lighting, and moving lens. The lens records and lights the objects from several different points of view as it travels past them. In the early 2000s I connected my first Epson scanner to a computer...
A Trifecta of Photo Workshops: Polar Bears, Tornados and Rock Stars
By Albert Chi— There are hundreds of workshops worldwide covering different aspects of photography, but these are unique because they meet three important criteria. First, they’re in unusual venues in the U.S. or Canada. Second, attendance is limited to no more than six and, finally, all are led by experienced and outstanding photographers who are pros in their respective specialties. Dawn Wilson: Go Eye-To-Eye with Polar Bears Dawn...
Asus 24″ Monitor: Perfect Color for Perfect Prints
By Arthur H. Bleich— You may own cameras and software worth thousands of dollars, but that won’t result in good prints unless you’re able to view your images accurately on your monitor. The 24” Asus PA248QV allows you to do just that; in fact, it out-performs many monitors costing a lot more than its modest price of $219—which includes free shipping. Don’t take my word for it; over 80% of more than 750 reviews from those...
Our National Parks Odyssey: Time Marches On
By Andrew R. Slaton— There was so much sunshine in those days. The abundant and pillowy cumulus clouds were always present, but they seemed to narrowly skirt obstructing the source of all that light for a suspiciously long amount of time. The cold, dark shadows would come eventually. Open country has always had a way of capturing my full imagination—in an all- encompassing way. It wouldn’t matter what manner or shape of landscape; the...
How Two of My Images Grew Into a 55-foot-wide Mural
By Christine Pentecost— Do you ever see something you want to take a photo of, “some day”? Something, maybe, you see all the time and plan to eventually get around to taking pictures of it? A unique lonely tree in an open field? Poppies waving in the breeze? A neat old building? A beautiful mountain range? And then, the unimaginable happens: the tree falls down, the field of poppies get crushed in a hail storm, that neat old building...
Kah-Wai Lin: Fine Arts Landscape Images
by Arthur H. Bleich— Five years ago, Dr. Kah-Wai-Lin, 38, changed the course of his life dramatically. After graduating from high school in Malaysia, he spent six years in the Ukraine getting his MD and another five in Sweden earning a PhD in medical science. When Princeton University offered him a position as a research scientist, he snapped it up; it would appear all the stars had finally aligned. Except that… AB: In 2016 you...
Documenting Maine’s Penobscot River Wilderness. Part 2
By Zac Durant— The first half of my trip was leisurely paced down the West Branch of the Penobscot and I had time to enjoy and photograph much of the river’s wildlife including an industrious beaver who simply ignored me, an inquisitive moose, and low flying eagles that soared by. And then there was the peculiar jack rabbit who paddled out in the shallows and hopped onto a protruding rock. As I approached, he seemed unconcerned by my...
Documenting Maine’s Penobscot River Wilderness. Part 1
By Zac Durant— The fierce intensity of the wind had carried my canoe out to the middle of the huge lake, where white caps were threatening to capsize it. If it were to succumb to the turbulent waters, I would not be in a very favorable situation. The water was cold, and I was at least a half-mile from shore. While I’m a capable swimmer, I didn’t like those odds very much… It all began in August, 2020 after I’d done a...
46 Photogs + 3 Years = 10,000 Images of NH
By Peter E. Randall— How many photographers does it take to document life in New Hampshire? According to the New Hampshire Society of Photographic Artists (NHSPA), the number is forty-six. At least that is how many professionals and advanced amateurs participated in a unique three-year shoot which will result in a full color hardbound book and exhibits in eight New Hampshire institutions. The book, New Hampshire Now, A Photographic...
Favorite Photo Places: Carlsbad Caverns, NM
By Lon Shelton & Ron Wolfe— Beneath the prickly pear and cholla cactus of the Chihuahuan desert in southeast New Mexico lies a spectacular treasure. Carlsbad Caverns National Park – a complex of 117 caves including the largest accessible cave chamber on our continent– dazzles visitors with its magnificence, its cathedral-like silence, and the sheer scope of its reach. On a normal year, roughly half a million visitors come to see...
Nikola Olic: Dominates Tall Buildings With A Single Lens!
By Albert Chi— Nikola Olic is a lover of photography– a quintessential “amateur” in the classical sense of the word. He’s free to exercise his artistic vision any way he chooses without restraints of time or client demands. “I was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia,” says Olic, now 47, “and came to the U.S. at 17 as an exchange student to study computer science and engineering.” He was assigned to the University of Texas, Arlington...
Baron Wolman, Iconic Rock Photographer, Dies at 83
By Tony Bonanno— Baron Wolman died peacefully on November 2, 2020 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 83. I feel privileged to have been able to call him a good friend for almost two decades. Baron was Rolling Stone magazine’s first photographer and actually had a major role in getting the unique rock music magazine of the Hippie generation off the ground. Although his iconic images are well known, and many of you who are reading...
How Photography Helped Save My Life
By Michael Blanchard— I was arrested in February 2010 in Maine for drunk driving while attempting to drive to Boston to talk to my wife and try to repair the damage from our constant fights. I was the COO at a company in Maine and my wife was living in the city. She was my whole world, and I was losing her. With no other support system I fell apart, with only vodka to hold me together. When I was arrested a second time, in March, for...
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