[Music] Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

Closed captioning is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport.

More information available at bemidjiairport.org Hello again everybody, I'm Ray Gildow and welcome to Lakeland Currents.

Minnesota is blessed with many great photographers from the shores of Lake Superior to the cornfields of southern Minnesota we have some really, really good photographers and we have one of them with us here today.

Jeff Collins is a photographer from the Brainerd area.

Jeff tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Well photography was just a hobby for me for most of my life but then it became a little more serious and I'm just a local guy who enjoyed taking pictures and I've worked in the Brainerd area.

I worked over at Keystone Auto most people are familiar with that in the area it was Northstar Plating when it first began, it's a chroming shop and I was warehouse supervisor there for 32 years then I retired.

But during that time I started just taking pictures and having fun and enjoying photography.

I think what got me going Ray was I went to the college and took some classes, remember when Steve Kohls was an instructor and he taught some classes there and he got me interested in it and knowing Steve's personality he kept saying just keep shooting Jeff, Jeff keep shooting, so I'd take pictures and I'd get better and better and the camera eventually I'd take the camera off of program, put it on manual, that's what really got me to be a good photographer and as the years went by I just got more and more interested in it and realized a hobby maybe a hobby could also be an income.

So a lot of people take pictures of landscapes, wildlife and that, but you've really got to be good to make money at that.

You'll take a Bill Marchel type guy with wildlife, you know, he's as good as it come as they come with wildlife photography.

So people photography is kind of the direction I was leaning towards because that's kind of where you can make more money I think.

One day I called Bob Larsen's studio in Brainerd here and I said I'd like to photograph weddings do you think you could teach me the trade.

Well it was good timing because Bob was really busy and he was looking for someone to help him out so he took me on board and he taught me the wedding photography trade and I thought if I can do weddings I can probably do any kind of photography because they're stressful and there's a lot there and it was in film days, everything had to be just right, you didn't have the back of the monitor to look at, you know, when you shot film, so you shoot a couple hundred pictures at a wedding and you have no idea if anything even turned out till it comes back.

And I just kind of progressed from there, started doing weddings on my own, some families and grads things like that.

Over the years I got away from the weddings, took up all your weekends you know things like that so I don't do that anymore.

I'll still do some family photography and seniors and grads but then I think what really got me started doing sports, which I do quite a bit of now, a friend of the family had a son who played basketball for Brainerd and he was very good so I thought I'll just go take some pictures of Landon while he plays basketball and it was in film, of course, so I shoot one or two rolls of film and come back and I know they look decent but I look back at them today and they're not very good but that progressed over time and I really enjoyed the sports, the aspect of it, it's a real challenge to capture the action, and that just progressed to where I am today, I'm shooting a lot of sports, not so much for making a living off it or anything, I am retired, but for fun.

I have a website and I put all the photos on the website where people can, players and parents and anyone can look at them all day long or they can maybe purchase a print or a download from them too and that has kind of gotten to be where I am today.

And the digital aspect of it has really helped with that, you know, take a couple thousand photos at a game and then go home and edit them and that's what I'm enjoying.

A little bit about the cameras and how they've changed since you started.

Yeah, like I said, I did start with film, we shot slide film when Steve Kohls was teaching the class so we could show everybody our work, you know, they'll put them in the carousel and show them up on the screen.

Yeah.

I enjoyed film photography, especially with the view camera.

I had a 4x5 view camera and you'd take five or six photos in a day, you know, and that was pretty much your day because it was quite an operation and I enjoyed that and then when digital came around I progressed into that, kind of dragged into it screaming and kicking because I didn't want to leave film, I enjoyed that.

Really.

Yeah I really did, the whole process.

A lot of people will say when they did dark room work, and I had a dark room in my basement, that the magic of seeing that print appear before you in the developer that's just really enjoyable, so I always enjoyed that but I embrace digital, you know, you pretty much have to if you're going to be serious about photography and I've been shooting digital and spending all my money on new cameras and equipment if you'll ask my wife but no that's kind of where it's progressed to today.

And I'll do some work for the college and the high school not necessarily work for them but photos for them, ceremonies, commencement ceremonies for the college each year when they do that and also Lake Country Journal has been, I've done some work for them.

There'll be some articles which somebody like you will write Ray, somebody who knows the words, and then I'll just do the photography for them and they'll plug it in.

I enjoy that a lot.

I used to work in a development studio in the Cities and we used to do 5 mm films for auto accidents for the highway department or for the highway patrol and we would, you know, put them in these process they would slowly go through the process of developing them from one tank to the other and every now and then we would drop one and we couldn't find them in the dark and they'd get ruined but the technology has changed.

There used to be so many photography studios that would develop you know pictures and with digital coming on board those things have all gone away.

It's just amazing the equipment that used to be involved in developing pictures is gone, it's just a totally different world now.

If you were to start with a camera and you're a new person just starting out you wanted to be an amateur photographer what kind of a camera would you be looking at?

Well, you know, a camera I guess in my opinion going back to film and in digital is basically a light tight box it's all it is, and when you push a button it opens up and closes real quick and it exposes what you're looking at to the film or today to the sensor that's really all they are, everything else is just kind of bells and whistles that have been added to it.

So start with something basic, you just need to record the image and after you've taken the picture and recorded the image today on your memory card that's when you start doing the work, take it home, put it on the computer, get your program started up, Adobe Photoshop, I use Adobe Lightroom which is part of Photoshop and that's a photographer's version of Photoshop and that's where kind of the dark room work takes place, you'll lighten and darken and dodge and burn and and do all the work to get your final image.

So just a basic camera you don't need the bells and whistles where you're taking 10 20 frames per second, at least not to start unless you're going to do something like sports, but most people want to do landscapes and people and that.

So $3-400 would get you a pretty decent camera you could do the work that you need to work.

Yeah and what would you recommend for people because we still always have students that want to learn to do photography would you recommend they take a class or start mentoring with someone how would you recommend people get started.

Yeah taking a class there's not a lot that I know of anymore in town.

The basic photography classes like they used to have of course college has their videography classes that they give and most of the young people I talk to are interested in video to tell the truth, few of them will be interested in still photography, but video is kind of where it's at and that's something to think about when they get a camera, too.

Some of the cameras they'll all take video just push the button and you can shoot video.

And it's pretty high quality isn't it?

It is, yeah, and you pay more for a camera and the quality gets more and more but from what I in my opinion I'm not a videographer by any means but you can't really see the difference when you start getting a really high-end until you're into this commercial kind of work so just get a basic camera that shoots stills and video and there is a photo club here in town that's a good thing to join up with.

In Brainerd.

Yes it's a FocalPoint Photo Club I think is what they're called and I attended that for quite a few years and was part of it and I really enjoyed it, haven't been there for quite a while but they meet at the Arboretum.

I'm not sure who you would contact but just look up FocalPoint Photo Club at the Arboretum, they meet I believe every other week.

You could probably call the Arboretum and they would tell you.

Yeah and that's a great way to learn photography, connect with other photographers, and it's everything from basic level to some really good photographers there.

Have you ever had a disaster with your camera, gone to a wedding and none of it worked out, anything like that?

You know very few, thank you Lord, and like I say when I first shot weddings it was film so you didn't know what you were getting and the camera wasn't autofocus, you had to wind each time after each shot, you had to use your light meter and flash meter, everything had to be perfect and really know what you were doing.

Remember I was taking photos at a wedding when I worked for Larsen Studio and I was taking pictures of the bride and you'd put a filter on the front of your lens, a soft focus filter and then she'd stand next to a window with her bouquet and do a soft focus shot of her looking down, it's pretty typical and I forgot to take that filter off, I continued on into the group shots and I got in a hurry, which you shouldn't do and I didn't really notice it was still on there so I got all the group pictures and they were all with soft focus so I didn't ruin it but it wasn't a real good quality photo shoot there.

That was kind of a disaster for me at a wedding, thankfully kind of minor, otherwise you know not too much, especially doing the sports and that with digital you can shoot hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and something in there if you know what you're doing is going to be acceptable.

Yeah because you can take so many pictures so fast too can't you.

Yes.

How many photographers do you think are active in the greater Brainerd Lakes Area, do you have any idea, you would have maybe a little idea from the club that you belong to.

There's a lot of photographers, as far as being professionally or really good I'm not sure.

I run into some really good ones sometimes and you'll see people posting pictures on Facebook and that and there's some really good photographers out there.

Have you ever entered into a contest?

Well at the photo club we had a contest and had a few photos in there.

I think Lake Country Journal I may have put a couple into there and placed.

I don't know how many I've won if any but.

Cuz we have the Lake Country Journal coming on down the road here and I know they have a photo contest every year and there's some really good photography in that journal which I think the Lake Country Journal has been in business now for about 24-25 years which is amazing because there's so many magazines that have come and gone over the years now and they have really high quality photography and your stuff has been in there a lot.

And you and I worked together on a project with the Wildlife Science Center down in Stacy, Minnesota.

Shooting animals is really a different ball game isn't it.

It is, it is, and that's where I've learned to respect people who do the wildlife work like Marchel and that it's a whole another game.

I don't do a lot of that not because I don't enjoy being in the woods and wildlife and such it's just I think it would be really time consuming to get really good at it.

You know I see people who put up blinds and their blinds up for a couple weeks and then they'll use it and they'll spend days and days in there to try to get a few really nice pictures, so except for the time aspect I would really enjoy that with wildlife.

I know you're a hunter, when you do your hunt do you ever take your camera with you?

I always have it with and I'll do some work for fun.

At deer hunting up at deer camp, we're up north little ways so it's in the woods, we just have a shack up there with a wood stove and no running water and an outhouse so it's kind of backaways, but what I've done in recent years is some nighttime photography.

Oh really.

That is really fun to do.

That's kind of what I'm doing now a little bit here and there to where you'll set up a camera, shoot it up at the night sky ,maybe towards the North Star and set it inside the camera, do the setting so it'll take a picture for like 15 seconds long exposure and then it'll click and then in 2 seconds you'll take another one and two seconds another so every couple seconds you'll do an exposure which is a long one and I'll do up to you know I've done over a thousand exposures just with the camera on the tripod.

And are you just shooting stars?

Mostly up towards the night sky yes because the camera can record more than your eye can see really, you set the iso really high on it and do that really long exposure and the stars just pop out at you.

Wow.

And then of course the magic comes after you've got the photos, say you get 3 or 400 of them and put them in Photoshop and you edit a few and then you put them in a time-lapse video and so you can put 6 -700 photos in a time-lapse video, shoot them or put it at 30 frames per second 24 frames per second and you'll get a 10 to 20 to 30 second video out of that of the stars and as you look at them you know the stars will be turning like this around the North Star and it looks like you shot a video of the night sky but it's, you know, maybe up to a thousand photos.

Wow that's quite a commitment.

Yeah well I can go to bed while it's taking pictures so.

So you just leave it out there.

You leave it on the tripod and the camera will take a picture every couple seconds.

And then how long does that camera battery last when you're doing that?

Well you can set it out with a couple batteries and 5-6 hours maybe depending on your battery power and you can do some auxiliary power too if you really want to but I found you don't need more than 5-600 pictures to do a maybe a 20 second video.

Wow that's a lot.

It's fun to do.

That's a big investment.

Let's get talk to sports a little bit because I know, like Bill Marchel I don't believe does anything in sports.

Some of the other photographers I know in the area don't, so you're one of the people that I do know that do sports and I'm not saying there aren't others that don't but what are you looking for when you go to a football or a basketball game or a track meet when you're taking pictures, what are you looking for?

Well a lot of frames per second, almost feel like I'm cheating sometimes you set the camera say maybe 10 frames per second and then when you see a play coming, football for example, you see the quarterback back to pass and you see his receivers open so you can key on him and then before the ball gets there you just start, as Steve Kohls would say spray and pray, you just start taking pictures and out of that there's usually something really good and you're just hoping for that one where the football's right at his fingertips, as he's catching it and that sort of thing.

So a lot of pictures taken during sports.

So do you make those pictures available to the parents, to the players, how do you do?

Yeah I do.

I'll go through them and edit them.

I'll shoot hundreds of pictures and then just whatever I end up with anywhere from 50 to a couple hundred of a game I'll put them on my website.

I have a website, smug mug, Jeff Collins smug mug, and people can go there you know the players know and a lot of the parents know where the website is and they'll look and they can look all day long and just enjoy it but if they want to they can either buy a print, it's available through smug mug just buy a print or you even get it downloadable.

And what do those cost usually.

Pretty cheap.

I think you can buy a 4x6 print for under a couple bucks or so.

Oh wow.

So it's just yeah it's not a money-making venture so much but it does pay for the cost to keep the website up, annual cost and that's really all my website is about.

Sure, so you take pictures for the college, Central Lakes College and I would assume the high school, do you do junior high stuff too, do you go down to the grades lower level?

A little bit, a little bit of the JV.

Our neighbor had a son who played football and was in track and he was very good so they asked if I do some photos of him playing football at Forest View and so that kind of progressed and it's neat to look back at the website and see pictures of him as a little guy in whatever grade they're in at Forest View and then it progressed up to Junior High and then he's in Senior High and became a really good player and now he's going to college and so yeah.

You shot any athletes who have become famous at the Division 1 level on to St.

Cloud State or North Dakota State have you hit any of those kids?

Well, you know, I think Brainerd had a softball pitcher, Nikki Anderson was that her name, she pitched for the Brainerd softball team and she went to the U of M and was a very good pitcher.

They may have won a championship I'm not positive on that but I got some pictures of her and this fellow I was talking about my neighbor, Dylan Gross, he set the state record this past year for shot put, in high school, he went to State, broke record and he's very good.

I forget exactly what school he's going to might be Mankato but it's for track and he was also a standout football player if he hadn't got hurt he could have done that too.

So there've been a few really good players over the years.

I can't think of anyone who's become real famous.

You know I wasn't around when, was it Joe Haeg that became... An NFL player.

I wasn't photographing then.

It's amazing.

When you have let's say Brainerd's playing Bemidji and you take pictures do you make those pictures available beyond your website to the Bemidji area or do they have to go to your website to get that?

Well they're on the website they've got to go to the website.

But some of the other teams and coaches especially the college teams know who I am and that I've got the website and they'll go to it and look at the pictures afterwards.

I concentrate on our guys, you know the Central Lakes College players and the Brainerd players but of course their teams, whether it's Bemidji or anyone else they're going to be in the photos too.

So a lot of the coaches know where the website is and they'll look at them.

And I suppose most newspapers have their own photographers although that's becoming fewer and fewer I think as time goes along.

Used to be, you know, a newspaper would have four or five photographers but I don't think it's that way anymore.

It's just that whole area has changed so drastically.

Yeah it really has and yeah Brainerd of course has got Steve and Kelly shooting for them and yeah I don't do anything for the newspaper, they're separate from me totally.

I mean we're at the same events.

And just not competitors.

Right right right not at all.

It's funny to see how close our photos are.

I'll see Kelly Humphrey will have a picture in the paper the next day of an event we were both at and I will have the almost identical picture.

Oh really.

Because, you know, we're seeing the same thing and we're after the same type of photo and that's a lot of fun too.

And so where do you see your hobby taking you from here on out?

Well just different things like the night sky photography that.

I thought maybe of setting up a camera this weekend when I'm out deer hunting and I'm pretty serious about hunting, but I thought I've got what they call a magic arm, maybe hook that onto a branch next to me in the tree and then put a camera on it and I've got a remote control that if I see something happening in front of me there I can start the camera up.

And just just for fun.

I don't know what will ever become of it but I've taken so many pictures over the years that it's fun to always try something different.

And that sounds like a different venue you see a lot of video of deer hunters you know that's become the big thing but I think good still pictures of deer are still very attractive.

Yeah it's kind of fun when you go to an event now if you go to an event this weekend do you have certain guys or certain gals you're looking for that it might be the better players on the team or do you just look for action.

I'm looking for the action but I know who's on the team and who better players are and sometimes I feel a little guilty because you'll go to a game and somebody I'll have lots and lots of pictures of someone.

Well, for example, if you go to a football game who's going to be in most of the plays?

Quarterback will always be in the play, some of the wide receivers are going to be there often and the running back's going to be in there so it's just part of the game, they're always in the plays.

Then some of the better basketball players you know who they are and if they've got the ball and there's nobody between them and the basket nothing can be better cuz you know a big dunk is coming so I'll concentrate on that.

We're out of time, goes fast doesn't it?

Yes it does.

And your photography is excellent, I have been able to see some of the work you do and we're going to show some of it on our screen as we talk through this, but thanks for coming on board.

Jeff Collins photography if you're looking for someone who does really good photos of groups of people and athletic things Jeff's a guy to contact.

Thanks for jumping on with us.

Thanks Ray.

I'm Ray Gildow.

You've been watching Lakeland Currents.

So long until next time.