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Why I take pictures......
" I chose photography as a medium of expression for
several reasons. First, it forces one to focus on single moments,
tiny fractions of a second. I find that very exhilarating because it
requires an alert concentration and deep sense of appreciation. In my
work I seek primarily to present pure beauty, a reflection of life as it
is. Consequently, I rarely use any filter except a polarizer.
I try to extract the beautiful and sublime from ordinary scenes. I
also look for odd juxtapositions of images that are natural, instead of
being posed.
Secondly,
one photograph can say so much, for so long a time. Because we live in a visual age,
photography in all its forms is the medium preferred by the public, primarily because it
is instantaneous and transcends words. Occasionally a single image can be so
powerful it becomes a permanent part of our conscious memory. The
transformational and healing quality of images has
been noted by famed psychoanalyst
Carl Jung,
and
many others. The average person is bombarded daily with an immense amount of imagery,
some of it horrible or chaotic. Most of it is also moving, that is, in video form,
which can be very distracting or even disturbing. Because a moving image contains
inherently more information, it is often presumed to be more valuable. However, it
is generally easier to remember a still image. The challenge is therefore to choose
which image to record out of many possibilities. By paying close attention to
those images which evoke harmony and beauty, a sense of upliftment comes, and a
realization of the many gifts that exist simply by being alive.
Although I enjoy writing, too, it's very
time-consuming and solitary. Photography is a far more social activity. A
portrait photographer must see the beautiful in people and try to draw it out.
That
aspect of it enables me to meet and learn to appreciate all kinds of people.
Portrait photographers must sometimes work with many people, and often with children or
pets whose behavior is unpredictable. It requires great patience, at times."
An avid
computer enthusiast for many years, Mr. Smyres also studied electronics and has
assembled many computers. With this website, he has combined his interest in
computers and photography, using the medium of the internet not only as a live portfolio,
but an educational and entertaining resource available to all. This site is
still growing and is being developed slowly according to funding.
"Much
of my work on this website is simply a record of common images, objects, and situations we
deal with daily but do not normally remember. I try to record those images with
as much attention to artistic principles as possible under the circumstances, but there is
deliberately a journalistic and storytelling element in many of the
photos. There may be asymmetry in one or more ways, often reflecting the view
that is actually seen, not an idealized one. One of the advantages of publishing
directly to the internet is the ability to immediately crop unwanted elements of the
image. This allows great flexibility in shooting, which is important because many of
the photos are shot under far less than ideal conditions, and often with a simple
camera. I often use a small digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 950.
My main camera now is the Canon 30D digital with several lenses, such as an 18 to 55 and a 70 to 200 mm lens.
I have an older Canon 300D as a backup. I also use a Nikon F801 film
camera, and sometimes a Rolleflex TLR. These are fine cameras, but
admittedly there are now many other even better ones available.
The reason I use a smaller digital is
because I often travel and I shoot under difficult and unusual
conditions. The top cameras are often very large and heavy, plus
they are extremely expensive. This makes them not ideal for the
kind of work I do most often. It's more important
to know your camera and how to see photos, than it is to have a large and
expensive camera."
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Biography
Photographer Paul Smyres was born and raised in the
foothills of the Himalayan mountains, in the village of
Mussoorie, in North Central India.
There he attended Woodstock School until
8th grade. In 1966, at the age of fourteen, his parents left India permanently. They
brought their 4 children across the Middle East, from Karachi, Pakistan, to
Amsterdam, Holland, traveling in a Volkswagen camper. During that
journey the family had the opportunity to visit Tehran, Bagdhad, Jerusalem,
and Istanbul, as well as a number of European cities. While in India
Mr. Smyres attended a private American school named
Woodstock School, in Mussoorie. about 20 miles north of Dehra Dun. Situated at about 6,500 feet in altitude, the view from the school overlooks
the Northern Plains of India, with a view north of the eternally snow-covered peaks of the high Himalayas.
He attended high school in a NY small town in NY's southern tier, near Binghamton. College was in
Albion, Michigan. After college he took a variety of other
courses in electronics, computer aided drafting, writing, accounting, and
business. In recent years Mr. Smyres has become a
student pilot and specializes in
aerial photography. See my
blogs and youtube site
www.youtube.com/youcanlearntofly and
www.clearskyphotos.com |
Paul's father, Robert, is a retired Methodist minister and missionary who
spent seventeen years in
India.
His mother, also retired, was an elementary school teacher for
many years. They live near Jacksonville, Florida. Mr
Smyres has two sisters, both teachers and one is retired, and a younger brother who is in the
book business. He was also born
in India. Paul's grandfather, Roy, was a
Methodist missionary to Africa and a
photographer.
He was an early pioneer into the Belgian
Congo in the 1920's on behalf of the Methodist Church. The elder Smyres was an
ordained minister, and during his life went around the world several times, taking
historical and documentary photographs and doing correspondence for the Methodist Church, in addition
to preaching. He was known for his entertaining stories and sense of humor and lived
until he was 99. |
Since his return to America, Paul has
traveled to 40 states and
lived for several years in six or seven. He worked in the tourist industry for
8 years, mostly in Florida, and has been to Canada,
Venezuela,
Italy, England, and
Puerto Rico, Japan, Thailand,
Costa Rica, and
India
since returning to
the United States. During early trips to and from
India he visited many famous cities in
Europe, including Rome, Geneva, Vienna, Amsterdam, Istanbul, and many others.
In 1966, Mr. Smyres' family left India permanently, actually driving from
Karachi, Pakistan to Amsterdam, by way of Tehran, Bagdad, Jerusalem, Beirut,
and Istanbul. During
his two three-week visits to
Venezuela, he hiked and traveled
by
horseback into the mountains in the Western
part of the country.
In late 2005 he returned to India and Bangkok for 2 weeks, where he visited
Mussoorie, Rishikesh, Hardwar, Dehra Dun, and Delhi.
He returned to India again in 2007 and 2008. In 2007
he visited Shimla, and in 2008 he visited the
Kullu Valley, "Valley of the Gods" He now lives in Millerton, NY,
where he has a studio on an old farm property. His
wife
is a trained artist and writer. She's also an experienced
teacher and often does presentations about Jungian psychology, art, symbolism and
mythology. He has also been to Thailand several times. |
In addition to his
private work and this
website, he has photographed hundreds of
infants,
and
children,
at
elementary and
dance
schools for several photography companies. One of his favorite subjects is pets, and
he collects their
portraits He's done a lot of pet photography.
Mr. Smyres plays guitar and enjoys reading, mostly non-fiction.
See some of the
samples:
cats,
dogs, parrots,
horses. He also does portrait work.
New
York City.
His primary photography work is now aerial and aviation photos.
Learn
something new.....
Tired of
boring, junk TV....Try YOUTUBE
Watch our playlists....
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Photos
of Woodstock School in India are posted at:
www.woodstock.ac.in
To contact Woodstock School in
India
development@woodstock.ac.in
Woodstock School accepts students from around the world.
http://www.geocities.com/ranj74/Mussoore.html
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many photos of Mussoorie, India |
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