As you may have guessed from the URL, my name is Steve Sowell. I'm a lawyer, I'm a scouter, I'm a photographer, I'm a father of 4 boys and a girl, I'm a transplanted Arkansawyer living in Michigan, I'm a fan of Pink Floyd, I'm an avid reader.

This site presents some of my work and enables me to share photos with my friends and family. The images on this site are copyrighted by Steve Sowell. Please do not use them without my permission.

I think it was Stephen King who once said that he wrote because it was less painful than not writing. I photograph for much the same reason; I am happier when I do so. It is a creative outlet for me, as my day job, while providing a lot of problem solving experience, does not reward creative thinking.

Shoot early, shoot often, to paraphrase Richard Daley! I have found that, in order to capture one good photograph, I must take at least 100 frames. Some days my odds are better than that, some days worse. Never stop, never get discouraged because you think what you are producing is "junk." Some day, you will get that rare image that makes it all worthwhile.

Look at the work of others, especially the acknowledged masters like Alfred Steiglitz, Harry Callahan, Ansel Adams, Yousef Karsh, Imogen Cunningham, Diane Arbus. Nothing wrong in emulating the style of the masters; stick with it long enough and eventually you will develop your own distinctive style.

Everywhere! Anywhere! OK, there limits--Congress is considering a bill making it an offense to take photos in rest rooms on federal lands. Generally, the owners of private property can exclude you from taking photos. I mean everywhere within reason. You never know when you will find a photo opportunity, and if you don't have your camera, you cannot capture the shot. I take my camera everywhere; taking my kids to school (I got a nice shot of a flag raising), in the back yard (my neighbor's rose bush), to Cedar Point, to scout outings, to pack meetings, on vacation, to museums, on camping trips, everywhere! One of my frequent haunts is Metro Beach, a park 10 minutes from my house.

Whatever you have! I have taken (what I consider to be) great photos with a $3 disposable camera I bought at the grocery store. It's not the camera, it's the photographer that makes a great picture. The Soho Gallery conducts a yearly contest where the one requirement is that the entrants use a "crappy" camera.

I would advise you to become thoroughly familiar both with the equipment you have (its features and limitations) as well as photographic principles in general (depth of field, composition, controlling exposure). It is by knowing both what your equipment is capable of and what can be accomplished with its limitations that you can decide whether and how to capture a shot. For instance if you have a $3 disposable (fixed focus, fixed aperture, single shutter speed, possibly no flash), you know not to take photos closer than about 3 feet from your subject, because it will be out of focus. If you have a $6,000 top-of-the-line digital SLR with all the bells and whistles, you still need to know that there is a lag from the time you press the button until the camera fires. If you think that lag time doesn't matter, try photographing the "Top Thrill Dragster" roller coaster at Cedar Point!

Frankly, I have not used my film cameras since I started using digital. For me, the advantages of digital far outweigh the drawbacks. I like that my photos are instantly viewable, can be stored on my hard drive, are organized by software, and are easily uploadable to web pages. The disadvantages are mostly technical: smaller dynamic range in contrast, image size limited by the number of pixels, digital noise at extremely slow shutter speeds. Here is a good comparison between film and digital.

On the other hand, digital cameras do not work very well below 32 Degrees Farenheit, and LCD displays (being liquid) are subject to freezing. Since I go on scout outings year-round, I may well take my Nikon FM on the January and February outings. UPDATE: actually, I took my Coolpix 5700 on the January campout. The temperatures were in the 20's, but I had no problem with the camera.

I generally do not manipulate or crop my photos. I do not find anything wrong with doing so; some of the great photographers have done so (Man Ray, Maholy-Nagy). Truthfully, I have no technical skills in Photoshop Elements to do any serious adjustment, although I do intend to learn someday... I do not usually crop because I was taught at a young age to do my composition in the viewfinder before pressing the shutter release and therefore find cropping generally unnecessary.