Smartphones and digital photography dominate the social media age. Underneath the surface is a nostalgic reach back to the machinations of the past. People are rediscovering the classics in vintage cameras, wristwatches, vinyl records, and component stereos. They were all once discarded in the instant of the social media digital age but are making a resurgence. For example, the wristwatch has adopted new tech and married it with a nostalgic look. This is true for the resurgence of old-school cameras, too!

The charm of vintage cameras is in the midst of a remarkable resurgence like watches and stereos. It is not just the generations that made them popular who are gravitating to them, it is a generation that never experienced their power and magic.

They are timeless devices described as mechanical masterpieces. Today, they are more than relics of the past or museum artifacts. Photographers and enthusiasts who only know digital photography are rediscovering vintage cameras. Not as a historical or nostalgic dalliance but as a sustenance reconnection with the artistry and craftsmanship that defined photography.

Vintage Cameras Are Making a Comeback

At the heart of the resurgence of vintage cameras is a desire for authentic touchable reality beyond the instant disposable digital world. Shooting with film and vintage cameras slows the world down a touch. It encourages photographers to think more intentionally about composition, light, and subject.

In digital photography, countless images can be snapped and deleted in an instant. On the other hand, vintage cameras require precision, patience, skills, and study. Each photograph is a purposeful, thoughtful creation, a throwback to another time and place.

Film photography has a unique aesthetic, which requires the users to take the time not to smell the roses but to absorb the interplay of light and its relations to images and shadows. Vintage cameras produce images that are harkened to a reality that the digital photo cannot touch. They have rich textures, organic grain, and depth that relate to a reality that the digital age has left behind. The analog quality produced by photography with vintage cameras is in direct conflict with the over-processed look of digital photos.

Mechanical Brilliance

Vintage cameras come from an age where design and mechanical innovations were important qualities. Models, from the sleek Leica rangefinders to the popular Nikon F series, are themselves works of art as well as functional tools of the trade. Vintage cameras operate with mechanical precision. Metal bodies, dials, clicks, and whirls offer an unparalleled hands-on experience beyond the digital world. Because there was no reliance on electronics, the mechanical masterpieces of the golden age of photography still performed flawlessly.

Challenges and Rewards of Vintage Photography

A vintage camera comes with its challenges. They are not and were not meant to be point-and-shoot instruments. Sophisticated mechanical vintage cameras require some study and trial and error. Film and processing mean spending money to feed the hobby. It also requires patience unless an investment is made in development equipment, which requires more study time. Repairs and maintenance for older models are not as easy as they once were as spare parts and repair shops become increasingly scarce. These challenges are part of what makes vintage photography so rewarding. Each image is an act of creation. Every mistake and the imperfections of the result, light leaks, grain, or slightly missed focus are all part of the process when embracing vintage cameras.

Photographers use light as an essential tool. The studio photographer mostly uses artificial lighting to create the effects of shadows and light, whereas outdoor photographs take advantage of natural light. It requires the student, hobbyist, or professional photographer to learn the interplay of light and its effects on the photograph.

As a photographer with over six decades of experience in the studio as well as outdoor photography, Micheal Grecco provides insights about the use of light in his book, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait: the Art of Celebrity and Editorial Photography.

Here’s a look at how natural light brings these photos to life. The black-and-white shot captures sharp contrasts and intense detail, showing the dramatic impact of light and shadow. The sunlight plays across different scenes and highlights its versatility, from a sunlit smile to the texture of sand on the skin. These examples beautifully demonstrate natural light’s ability to enhance every subject it touches.

The Nuances of Natural Light in Photography

Natural light offers a depth and variety that can be challenging to replicate in a studio, even with the most advanced lighting technology. For photographers, observation is crucial in harnessing the full potential of natural light. It is essential for the photographer to look at the world first through their own eyes, unfiltered by the viewfinder or lenses of a camera.  This approach mirrors that of artists like DaVinci, who would meticulously study his subjects and their surroundings at different times of the day to see how shifts in light altered their appearance. Similarly, photographers can tap into the unique qualities of natural light—be it the warm tones of sunrise, the stark shadows of midday, the diffuse glow on cloudy days, or the enchanting light during the golden hour—to create compelling images.

On another note, natural light is not restricted to outdoor photography, no matter the setting, natural light is an essential tool for the photographer. In the daytime even without artificial lights, interiors have a natural light. Outdoors or indoors natural light changes the perception of the subject and becomes a relevant part of it.

 

The Time of Light

Unlike artificial light, natural light cannot be controlled by the flick of a switch. It can be anticipated by study and observation. Instead of returning to a scene for months, sketching and planning the picture like DaVinci, a photographer today should invest some time in studying the scenes of their photographs at various times of the day.  The natural light of dawn, mid-day, golden hour, and dusk will have different views of shadows, light, angles, and perception that will drastically alter the scene. The background, foreground, and the subject itself will be altered by the time of light.

Contrasting times of the day can not only affect the landscape photo but also the portrait, action shot, and special effects photographs. The softness or fiery reds of sunrise, the hardness of the noonday light, and the muted light of dusk will provide the same subject with distinctively different end results when photographed. The subject and its environment, the interplay between shadow and light are key to using natural light in photography.

Athletic photography is regarded as a specialty. Capturing sporting events in motion requires specialized equipment along with a skilled photographer. The difficulties of capturing action and emotions underwater are magnified by the environment.

Capturing the tapestry of nature is an important artistic endeavor of photographers. There are professional photographers who gravitate to underwater nature photography and those who gravitate to human competition in the water. Water offers a kaleidoscope of textures and colors to the photographer that is both an ally and a nemesis.

The unique environment of photography in water presents similar challenges for all photographers who focus on nature as well as sports. Action and emotions permeate both, however, those photographers who set their apertures to photograph the live action of sports are adding instantaneous reactions to their tool belt of skills.

Equipment, Technique, and Skills that Challenge Underwater Photography

The equipment challenges of underwater photography are met by a camera manufacturing industry that competes. To best their competitors there is an inflow of capital, time, and research into developing underwater cameras and the apparatus to use them. Today the underwater photographer has freedom of movement and a choice of equipment that has never been enjoyed for underwater photography.

Photographic equipment available for underwater use includes waterproof cameras, housing, lights, strobes, and the equipment necessary. Everyday sporting events on fields, courts, tracks, courses, and raceways attract thousands of photographers who try to capture a gem among the millions of images that are taken.

Along with learning the intricacies of the latest equipment and its limitations, underwater photographer needs to challenge their own techniques and skills to capture action and emotions underwater.

The skills that shape a photographer are constant. They need to understand and use the interplay between shadow and light, negative and positive, foreground and background, and framing and perspective. These difficult skills are made more difficult to master by the challenge of water and its effect on clarity, distortion of distance, and refraction of light.

Using the Fluid Dynamic of Water to Enhance Action and Emotions

The underwater photographer must recognize the how and why of the fluid dynamic of water and its unique interplay of shadow and light on the subject. Water can be used as a foreground, background, or a combination of both to enhance action and emotion in the underwater photograph.

Michael Grecco has decades of experience beginning with 35 mm black and white photography for leading news organizations. He has developed techniques and skills that are intrinsic, intricate, and essential in creating photographs that join the forces of framing, lighting, and environment.

Each year as he tackles a new discipline in his photographic adventures his understanding of light and shadows, framing, and perspective is sharpened. Whether photographing in black and white, on the field, or in the water, Michael Grecco is skilled at capturing athletic action and emotion.

Capturing actions and emotions underwater requires Michael Grecco to apply his photographic skills to compensate for the environmental challenges that water brings to the photograph. Along with his other photographic accomplishments, Michael Grecco has mastered the art of photography that captures underwater actions and emotions.

Photography’s influence on modern advertising goes beyond a moment in time. Beyond just an image, a photograph has the power to tell a story, create a brand, capture a feeling, create desire, and influence the viewer. The photographer is the Influencer of the digital advertising age.

The “Golden Age” of advertising is defined as the decades from the 1950s through the 1980s, however its power, and influence, did not end when the year turned 1990. Advertising continued to evolve. Those that are familiar with the American Television series “Mad Men” where treated to a “behind the scenes look at the boom time of the ad men.

In New York City, the glamour of the ad agencies and the people behind the ideas became a culture onto itself that was mimicked in every city and town across the USA and throughout the world. It began as the era of the grey flannel suit, the two-martini lunch and advertising men pushing businesspeople out of the spotlight in financial news. This gave way to the decadence of a counterculture that revolutionized society and all forms of art including photography. The process continues.

Photography Advertisers the Advertising

The lead character in Mad Men, Don Draper was a composite of the people who glamorized the sales pitch. The army of ad execs who inhabited Madison Ave and similar districts around the world took the ordinary and turned them into the extraordinary that people did not need but were made to want by advertising.

Beyond the ad script and pitch, the ad men of the 1950s through the 1980s relied on the images that were the prime focus of the ad. For this they relied on photographers who were also evolving in their storytelling power.

The Story as a Picture

“Every picture tells a story”, and “A story is worth a thousand words.,” are cliches that drip truth. Photography’s influence on modern advertising goes beyond image to the photographer’s gift to create and tell a story in moments captured in time. Michael Grecco has developed and refined the gift of storytelling through photography by embracing its evolution.

Michael Grecco learned the craft of photography by rising through the ranks as a photojournalist telling a story with each click of the shutter. Newspapers and magazines were the beginning of turning the craft of photography into a lifetime pursuit of the art of photography for Mr. Grecco.

Photo to Art, Art to Photo

From his early days of selling photos of news events to the Associated Press (AP) Michael Grecco became captivated with the nuances of lighting, framing and storytelling. Every photo he shot was a captured moment and an experiment in photographic excellence.

In the late 1960s Andy Warhol grabbed the golden ring of fame for turning the art of still photographs into art. Today, Michael Grecco, a Photographic Influencer in the heart and soul of the digital age is melding his photographs to tell stories, create desire, influence, and push the boundaries of commercial advertising as art. Michael Grecco is redefining the focus of photo to art and art to photo.

Photography has been a passion for Michael Grecco since the age of twelve, and this passion grew as he started doing creative experimentation in professional photography later on. He turned his first 35mm camera into a lifelong passion for creative experimentation of photographic techniques and innovations. Less than a decade after receiving his first camera Michael Grecco became a “stringer”, a freelance photographer for Associated Press (AP). Stringers were only paid for the photos that the AP considered good enough for publication. It was the ultimate test of shooting photographs that were a cut above the rest.

In photography, it sharpened the lens for the pursuit of excellence. It meant breaking from traditional framing and lighting and developing innovative techniques that would be noticed above the dozens of other stringers who were turning in photos. During these early days, Michael Grecco experimented with lighting, framing, and unique angles when shooting photographs. His style was noticed, and he moved up the ladder. He was hired as a staff photographer at a Boston newspaper, rock magazine, and radio station.

Lighting, Lenses, Developing and Framing

Each new career opportunity enabled him to creatively experiment with different lighting techniques, new lenses, innovations in processing and film. Michael Grecco was breaking the mold with each advancement as a professional photographer. From capturing news events to documenting the early days of punk, each adventure in lighting techniques, advancements in equipment, developing techniques and framing the shot was the creative experimentation in professional photography that would set the next challenge.

Today in the world of photography Michael Grecco proudly wears the moniker “Master of Lighting”. Throughout his long storied career Michael Grecco has combined an experimental approach to perfecting the technology of professional photography. His personal artistic vision leads him to explore all the genres and applications of his passion of professional photography.

From news to pizza ads starring iconic country stars, Michael Grecco is equally at home photographing, high fashion, action sports, advertising and the depths and nuances of life and the universe. He embraces the challenges of creative experimentation in new technology, lighting, lenses, camera equipment, framing and presentation and whatever technology will offer next.

The Photographic Signature of Michael Grecco

Michael Grecco continues to challenge himself and his vision to experiment with all the tools that a professional photographer can use in the era of technological advancement. Using a drone, computer, telescope, satellite, or old-fashioned box camera are all part of the photographic signature of the creative experimentation in professional photography by Micheal Grecco.

Mr. Grecco sees no limits to the boundaries that have opened in the art of photography by technology. VR, AR, and AI are all challenges in breaking the mold by using creative experimentation in professional photography. Michael Grecco looks forward to embracing them all and integrating them into the art of creative experimentation in professional photography.