RAY'S REPORTS

I been getting questions about if I ever shoot photos in color. So here is a still from The Force Awakens. Nowadays my parents can’t hear that good and English is their second language so they like to watch everything with the subtitles on. Watching and reading movies with them I found out you get way deeper into the story, so now I like to watch everything with the subtitles on too. It also adds another dimension to shooting photos off the tv.

Which came first the chicken or the egg? In my case, the egg would be photography and the chicken would be the zine. And in my case, I started making zines before I got into photography so the chicken came first.

Since zines are cheaper, easier, and cooler looking in black and white I started shooting black and white. The main purpose being to publish it in my zines. Black and white film is also cheaper, easier, and funner to process yourself. By my mid 20s I got a job in a black and white darkroom and that’s when I got deep into printing and processing.

I shoot color for commissions, IG stories, and Youtube. Actually I haven’t shot a roll of film since 2014 so everything I shoot is in color from a digital camera, then I convert it to black and white in Photoshop.

At this moment in time it is not that much more money to publish zines in color. Also now that I’m a “blogger” what would it hurt to post some stuff in color, I do sometimes. But for the most part it’s too late. I’m addicted to black and white photos and stuck in it for life probably. I could go on and on about contrast, polarities, yin and yang, hopes and despairs, illusions and realities, heaven and Earth. But in the end I just like how it looks and it’s a language that I am still having fun learning about.