Robert James/Studio James
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A few samples of some of my early underwater photography. If you select any of the above images you will open a page with a few more UW images that you can enlarge.

I am not a 'professional' photographer, meaning I don't make a living from my photography. I am what I like to think of as a semi-professional, which to me means, Photography is a 'serious' hobby, an ‘avocation’ rather than my vocation.

For fun, I work at this full-time job as an IT Director (That is Information Technology for those that don't know) and that job pays for all my photography equipment and pays the bills.

I started photography while in college. I had just earned my rating as a SCUBA instructor and wanted to photograph the incredible underwater world I was enjoying. This started me on my photographic journey. I became fascinated with the way the camera could capture a moment in time and preserve it. Everything happens so fast. To be able to capture just a small moment and sit and study it you see so much more. The underwater world is so different from our own and so filled with color.

Of course, living in the Midwest, as you can imagine, Underwater Photography was not something you can do just any free afternoon. So even though I thoroughly enjoyed this part of my journey, I was not able to experience it very often. If you click on the images to the left, it will take you to a page where I share some of these early works.

In between SCUBA trips where I could practice what I so loved, I did take a lot of photos of friends at parties and just in everyday life. I always tried to capture them when they weren’t aware the camera was on them. I never did like the posed shot.
I also continued to work with nature shots above water. I have thousands of useless images of people, flowers, trees, scenic views, and so much more. I know the experience I gained doing this type work was valuable, but none of it really excited me. Once again, you can click on the images to the right and it will take you to a page showing a very small sample of some of this work.

I moved to Madison, WI in 1987 following a better job in my primary career. I’ve always wanted to live near the ocean, but Madison has not been a disappointment. I love the way the city is built around four lakes and Madison is one of those smaller communities that offers all the amenities of a large city. Being the state capitol and a huge college town there are many opportunities for anyone willing to partake in them.

After moving to Madison, I pretty much let my camera collect dust in one of my storage closets. Yes, I would take it out once in a while and play around, but there just wasn’t anything exciting to take images of and I was so busy with my new job that I couldn’t take many trips to find something better.

Then in 2000 I stumbled across Bryan Ockert's Website:

Chaos In Austin.


Back when I first came across this site, Bryan was just starting to photograph the male form and he kept this incredible journal of his experiences. He shared how nervous he was approaching guys and asking them to model. He literally learned his techniques from the School of Hard Knocks.

Today, Bryan's site is INCREDIBLE! He has come so far in just a few short years. I have NO aspirations of duplicating it. However his site did challenge me to consider making the move to photographing the male form.

I told myself, "This guy has brass balls" (no offense Bryan... grin)... But if he had the courage to start from scratch and display his work, then I could start over also.

So here I am. I’m not as far along as I’d like. I had hoped that I could shoot one model per month. Well, that is FAR easier said than done. But I am enjoying the journey and I hope you can also enjoy some of the images on the pages of this site.






Samples of some of the Nature work I did when I was bored and wanted something to do. Clicking on any of the images above takes you to a page with a few additional photos.



 
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