Within this web-site, you will find numerous photographic images that I have made over the past few decades.  The subject matter tends toward scenery, both natural and man-made, but it is not limited to that.  Often, I find myself drawn to ordinary, everyday scenes, that turn out to be extraordinary when viewed from a certain perspective or at a critical moment (yes, I know; me and Cartier-Bresson both).  With manmade objects and architecture, I tend to notice unintentional compositions, not infrequently ironical, that people seem to leave all over the place.

Only a few of the images are OF people, and none of the subjects are identifiable, because what they are doing is more important than who they might be.  Also, I've never been in the habit of carrying photo-release forms when I go out to shoot, and I wouldn't want anyone to get mad at me for selling photographs of him or herself without permission and without compensation.

I live in San José, California, so several of the images are from there.  When I was a teenager, we lived in Pasadena, California, so most of the older ones are from there.  For my day job (which I can quit if I can sell enough photographs, folks), I work at a company that has a couple of factories in Thailand, which is why I have an entire category just for Bangkok.  Many of the rest are from trips with the in-laws, to Yosemite, Arizona, Montana, and Hawaii.

In 2003, I went on a few road trips by myself, specifically and exclusively to take photographs.  A few of those are done already and are in this site, but I also have a big backlog to be scanned and edited.  I had to put that aside, however, so that I could concentrate on FINISHING the web-site, or at least finishing it enough to post it on the internet.

Most of the older photos are black & white, which is what I was equipped to develop at the time, so that is what I shot.  Some people, both photographers and otherwise, prefer black & white, as being somehow more pure or essential or...I don't know what.  I have no such preference and no such beliefs, although I might have had at one time.

I do know that some images can be very ho-hum in color, but exquisite in black & white, and the opposite can be true as well.  These days, I shoot everything using color transparency film.  That way, I can decide with each image whether to keep the color or to turn it off, although I have chosen to do the latter with only a very few.  

Most of the earlier Thailand photos were shot in black & white, mainly because I bought the film there, and it took me several trips to find out where to get the color film that I wanted.  In the mean-time, I took the opportunity to experiment with black & white products from both Foma (made in the Czech Republic) and Agfa (Germany), both readily available in Bangkok.

Although I continue to use film, all of the "back-end" processing is digital, beginning with an Imacon FleXtight Precision II scanner, which is, in essence, a high resolution digital camera that takes pictures of pictures.  From 35 mm film, typically I get about a 42 Megapixel image.  For those of you who may wonder, the file size ends up being about 140 MB; slightly less once the ragged edges have been trimmed off.

Lately, however, I have been shooting 4x5" more than 35 mm.  Scanning a 4x5" frame at 1800 pixels per inch, I get roughly a 55 Megapixel image, and the file size is around 160 MB.  In both cases, I use the very standard 24 bit RGB "color space."  That means that every pixel consists of some combination of red, green, and blue; each of those color components is defined by a numerical value between zero and 255.

With most of my photographs, I use essentially the entire frame.  By scanning at the highest resolution, I usually end up with an image that has around 8000 pixels in the longer dimension.  This is enough pixels to produce a very high quality print up to 40" (101.6 cm) long.  Yes, that means that the density of the print is "only" 200 pixels per inch.  Actually, that is quite a high resolution, and not to be confused with DOTS per inch (dpi), which is something else altogether.

For more information about the prints, please see (yep, you guessed it) "About the Prints."

"...three."

This semi-self portrait was snapped, perhaps just a moment too soon, by my youthful assistant (and younger daughter) Elizabeth on October 31, 2003

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Please note:  the following is a more-or-less chronological screed [n. "a long discourse or essay, esp. a diatribe"; "an informal letter, account, or other piece of writing"] about me, cameras and other related equipment that I have and use, have and don't use, had and used but no longer have, and don't have but might have one day.  There's also a bit of information about, among other things, photo classes I did or did not take, and why I prefer film to digital "capture."  If you feel that this might be of some interest to you, please continue.  Otherwise, you may prefer to read "About the Images" in the column at the left.  In either case, I hope that you will look through the galleries and find images that please you, perhaps purchase one or more of them, and recommend this site to your friends.

 Thank you,              

David Berger

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I have pursued photography as a hobby for much of my life.   In recent years, I have gone from shooting almost exclusively 35 mm to mostly 4x5".  The large format has some disadvantages, chief among them that it usually takes several minutes to set up the camera, compose, and capture the image, compared to mere seconds with 35 mm.  But in most cases I readily accept this as the price to be paid for much greater control over the final result.

The oldest pictures that you will find here (not counting the "Photo Restoration" image) were made in 1972, shortly after I saved up enough money from babysitting and yard-work to buy my first SLR camera, a Pentax Spotmatic.  A few years later, I replaced that with a Spotmatic f (wide-open metering!), and a little while after that I got a Crown Graphic 45 that is still in reasonably good condition, considering that it is, most likely, older than I am.

Still more babysitting (I was in high demand) got me an enlarger, trays, tanks, reels, etc. so that I could develop my own film and make my own prints at home, albeit limited to black & white.  I was permitted to wall off a bit of space at the back of the garage, and to install a counter, a safe-light and a bit of ventilation, and thereby had myself a reasonably good darkroom.

I played with these cameras through high school and college, learning what I liked to shoot and how to shoot it.  In the darkroom, I figured out what film, developers, and paper I preferred; experimented a bit with toners, and got to where I could dry my film with hardly any spots at all.

 Although I never seemed to have time to take a photo class in high school, occasionally I did stop by to chat with the teacher and to wander through the student gallery.  I took one photo class in college which, if nothing else, made me aware of the possibilities for photographic abstraction.  Plus, we had a lot of nude models.

Several of the images I made at that time are offered here, including "Garden Door," "Skylight," "Stairway to Where," "Big Wide World," and "Shadow Detail" (sorry, no nudes).  All of these are 35 mm; back then I used the Crown Graphic mainly for group photos for the college yearbook, although I did use it again in '95 and '96 at Yosemite and Zion.

The Spotmatics are long gone, but I still have a 35 mm camera, a Nikon N6006, which I use with the Nikon 28-200 mm zoom.  It is a great little set-up, even though the body is more than ten years old.  Every now and then I will take it along if I think I will need speed and mobility.

Most of my Thailand pictures were made with this camera, although the earlier ones (along with a whole bunch of snapshots of cats, kids and dogs), were made with a Pentax MX that I got in 1982.  It's around somewhere, probably in my older daughter's room, but I don't go in there...too dangerous.

The darkroom is also long gone; I did not do any of my own processing from 1979 until 2001.   Beginning with the Yosemite pictures from 1995, I had my film developed at a couple of local professional photo labs.  After a while, however, I decided that I really didn't like the idea of anyone else handling my film.

To solve that, I got a Jobo CPP2 processor, and installed some plumbing and a water-temperature controller, so once again I can develop my own film at home.  I use a 3010 Expert JoboDrum, so I can do up to 10 sheets of 4x5 at a time.  It makes for slow going, but normally I need to develop only 100 to 120 sheets at a time (and that only infrequently), and I can easily get through that amount of film in just a few days.

For shooting large-format, now that the Graflex is retired, I'm using a Toyo 45AX field camera, which is very simple, robust, nicely built, and very portable.  If it had yaw-free tilt, it would be perfect, but I've become pretty good at compensating for that.  With three lenses, I can cover about as much as the standard bellows can handle and still get nearly any image I want.  My short and medium lenses are from Rodenstock, a 90 mm Grandagon-N (f/6.8) and a 150 mm Apo-Sironar-S, while  the long lens is a Nikkor 360-T.

To go with this I have a Sekonic spot meter, the latest Polaroid back, and (after waiting, what, a year?), the single-frame Kodak Readyload film holder.  The whole 4x5 set-up fits very neatly in a Tamrack 767 backpack, including a couple of boxes of film in the accessory side pockets.  It is just small enough to qualify as airline carry-on, so I don't have to check it, but I get awfully nervous when the Security folks decide to do a hand-inspection.

When I got serious about the large format, I began to have conventional photographic enlargements made by one of the labs that had developed the film.  I found a framer who charged me very reasonable prices, and I hung one or two pictures here and one or two pictures there on the (inside) walls of my house.

After a few years of this, I had pretty well filled up all of the available wall space.  I hadn't even hung all that many pictures, since most of the prints are fair size: 16 x 20" and 24 x 30", and one or two bigger than that.  I realized that if I kept having prints made, they would just pile up in drawers, and I certainly didn't want to do that, like a museum that displays only 10% of its collection at any one time.

Of course I wanted to keep shooting, but rather than just accumulate more and more images that nobody would ever see, I decided to do two things.  First, go digital (OK, semi-digital), and second, make those images available to the world at large (for a reasonable consideration, of course).

Semi-digital because, at least as of this writing in AD 2004, I find it very easy to head out to just about anywhere with my 4x5 kit, a few boxes of film, and one spare AA battery for the light meter.  The film keeps very nicely until I am ready to develop it, and then I can scan it at my leisure.

In contrast, full digital would mean, in addition to the camera body and lenses, lugging along a cranky lap-top PC (with extra batteries), a bunch of cable, and a digital camera back with not enough resolution, that does not make the best use of my lenses because the sensor is too small.

Maybe in a few years someone will offer a digital back that is lightweight, rugged, un-tethered, reasonably priced, provides enough resolution (at least 6.4K x 8K at 24 bit RGB, please) at the full format, and can make an exposure in as little as 1/250 of a second, just like the shutters in the lenses.  When that day comes, I guess it will be soon enough to decide whether or not to abandon film.

Lucky for me, just about the time I decided to go with this digital back-end process, some very nice products became available for that.  These days I am using an Imacon FleXtight Precision II scanner hooked to a Dell Precision 530 workstation (I know, obsolete; so what else is new?  Maybe I'll upgrade when the 5 or maybe 10 GHz Xeon processor has been out for a while) running Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  I have a Sony G420 monitor, and to calibrate it I use the ColorVision Monitor Spyder with Optical.  I am printing on an Epson SP9600 with Ultra-Chrome (pigment based) ink.  This printer does an excellent job on both paper and canvas.  I find that I prefer the Epson canvas and Somerset Velvet paper, although the Epson Smooth Fine Art paper (made by Crane) also is very nice for most images.  For more about this, please see "About the Prints."

Questions and (constructive) comments or suggestions are welcome at any of the following:

E-Mail address:

    db_photo@comcast.net

FAX:

    (408) 528-7037

Postal address:

    David Berger Photography

    P.O. Box 731027

    San José, CA  95173

To Place an Order:

Click here to go to the page that explains all about it.

Frequently Asked Questions (People have asked some of these; the others are just self-serving softballs that I made up):

- On the large JPG pages, I see lots of words.  Will the words be on the print that I get?

Nope.  No words.  Just the picture.

- Lots of artists number their prints, because each one is part of a limited edition.  Do you do that?

Nope.  I print to order, and I don't number the prints.

- Well, do you sign them?

Why, yes, I do sign each one in the bottom right hand corner, and below the signature I usually write the date, as near as I know it, when the image was made.

- Is it OK to touch the image on the print, or would that be a bad thing?

Depends.  Very dry hands - maybe not so bad; damp or oily fingers - very bad.  But, why take a chance?  Best to touch the borders only, if you must touch it at all.

- In your picture on this page, why are you wearing that dumb hat?  I can hardly see your face.  And what's with the silly expression?

I know, mom.  If I get a better one, I'll replace it.

- I absolutely must have (name of image here), but I'd really like to get it from you already framed, so that I can just take it out of the box and hang it up.  Can you do that for me?

Nope.  You are almost certain to be much happier if you work with a skilled local framer.  The convenience does not outweigh the potential for disappointment.  If that's a deal-breaker, so be it.

- Are you available for a one-man-show at my exclusive art gallery in (name of city here)?

Are you kidding?  Just tell me where and when.

- I really like your work.  Do you do weddings?

Nope.  Unless maybe if you are a close relative, or a good friend, or if my wife tells me I have to.

- The pictures of Thailand are cool.  Do you have any more?

I'm glad you asked me that.  In fact I do have several more, and not just of Thailand.  As I get the chance, I will add them to the site.

- If I order a picture, and I decide I really don't want it after I get it, can I send it back to you and get a refund?

Nope.  You need to be very sure before you order that you really will want to keep the print.  If you are not sure, do not order.

- Can you really get such a huge enlargement from 35 mm film?  I've tried it, and the grain is terrible.

Yes, it is possible, but you have to use a fine-grain film to begin with.  You may have used "high-speed" film, which has very large grains of... light-sensitive stuff.  I always use relatively slow film, which has very small grains.

- I have a very good digital camera, but no way can I make such big prints.  If I try, they look really funny, especially the sharp edges.  How can your prints be any better?

Most digital cameras these days (2004 - 2005) are rated at 3 to 5 megapixels.  That may seem like a lot, but it isn't.  The resolution of fine-grain film is 5 to 10 times higher.  As I explain in the far left column on this page, I get around 42 megapixels from a 35 mm frame.

- I know a great place for you to take pictures.  Would you like me to tell you where it is?

I'd love to hear about it, but don't be surprised if I don't rush right over to check it out.  No offense, but if I did go, and something were to catch my eye, most likely it wouldn't be the thing that you wanted me to look at anyway.

- Aren't you worried that someone might just download your pictures without paying?

Not really.  The resolution of the JPGs is only 72 dpi.  They look OK on a computer monitor, but the largest decent quality print would be not more than about 5" in the longest dimension.  Big enough for a greeting card or a post card, but hardly worth the effort, I would think.

- Do you mind if I download some of your pictures and use them as "wallpaper" on my PC?

Not at all.  In fact, please do.  Just be sure to tell people where you found them.  One thing you should NOT do is turn around and sell the files to other people to use as PC wallpaper.  That would be wrong.

- So, if you are not a full-time, professional photographer, what do you do?

I could tell you my title and job description in a few words, but it would mean nothing to most people.  I could try to explain it in a few paragraphs, but that still wouldn't help, and trust me, you probably don't care that much.  I will say that I am an

Engineer, in the disk drive industry, and I work with magnetic head components.  The work is interesting in its way, the people are mostly pretty nice, and the remuneration is not inconsiderable.  However, it is not so very personally fulfilling.

- If you could, would you devote all of your time to photography?

Well, maybe not all of my time, but I would not mind making that my official career.  Certainly my wife  envisions, after she retires in a few years,  accompanying me all over the world, as I travel in pursuit of an ever-expanding portfolio of incomparably wonderful images.

- Really?  What does your wife do?

Now that is relatively easy to explain.  She is a programmer, and a very good one, although she discovered very quickly that web-design has very little to do with what she does at work.  She had volunteered to build this site, but although she did create the basic structure, her interest waned very quickly after that.

- Well, what else do you do besides Engineering and photography?

Gee, this is getting to be like some kind of interview.  OK, briefly, then:

I work on my house a lot - including landscaping, repair, and remodeling.  I do almost all of my own design, and a lot of the building I do myself as well, although lately I have been hiring contractors for the big projects, because these take much too long otherwise.

Occasionally I cook, and I certainly enjoy a wide variety of food, probably more than most people I know.  This is thanks to my mother, who got me interested at a very tender age, and the dozens of TV cooking shows I have watched over the years.