Paul W. Faust
Short---version
Photographer / Writer / Stock Photo Service / Digital Imaging.
Self-taught (everything)
My main photo subjects include;
Black & White - Fine Art - Historical - Infrared - Nature - Special Effects - US Travel & Americana
----Past assignments include, shooting stills for Hollywood movie production, and at one time shooting models portfolios for new Hollywood hopefuls such as Bo Derick, Heather Locklear, Pricilla Barns, and others.
----Published in American Photographer, Camera 35, Camera and Darkroom, Popular Photography, Western Photographer, Photographic, Photographers Forum, 2006 Photographer's Market, and Coast Magazine, plus; the web sites, www.ApogeePhoto.com, www.TravelPhotographers.net, www.DoubleExposure.com and others, including four cover image assignments. My images have also been used by the NikonNet web site, Bogen Photo Imaging, AlienSkin Software, East Tennesse Film Commission, and The Knoxville Zoo.
----Presently I am doing some freelance writing for the online photo/digital magazines www.doubleexposure.com, plus building my own stock photo service, which is what this web site is for, and which is still under construction. ++(and always will be)
-----Occasionally I sell fine art prints in local galleries, more often online. (read Special below)
-----All images on my site were taken with Nikon cameras and lenses.
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----Special children's charity note; -- 50% of ALL the sales from my fine art photography goes to the children’s charity projects I support, including Feed The Children, St. Judes Children's Hospital, several Northern Plains Indian reservation schools. ---- ( 25% goes as direct cash donations, and 25% is used to cover the expenses for other charity work I do, such as Habitat For Humanity, and local groups that make deliveries of food, clothing and medicine to the poor families of the Appalachia Mountain areas.) My past sales over the years have been able to buy over 14,000 lbs of food for "Feed The Children" alone.
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Loooong Version ---- ( if you have a lot of time to kill, read on ) ---!
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Born.....Yes---:-)-----------Place.....Pennsylvania, USA
Heritage....Scotch / Irish / Native American
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-------My first exposure to photography was from my dad, who for a short time had a simple darkroom he set up in the bathroom to process the shots he would take on family trips. My own interest in photography did not start until I was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. (USMC) There I bought my first camera at a local pawn shop so that I could record all of the places I’d see and visit on weekend liberty, or wherever I would be stationed. Those places turned out to be Southern Calif, and Arizona, Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Taiwan, and Viet Nam. Unfortunately, due to several bad moves over the years, most of those old images were damaged, or lost. That really did not matter very much, since I was not into doing any kind of serious photography at that time, and most of what I did shoot back then was on the "very" poor side anyway.
-------After my discharge from the Marines I went back home to Pa. and worked at regular jobs, but on weekends I would take country drives to find, and photograph any places of interest around the area. Not real hard to do when within 100 miles or so, were places like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, the Pennsylvania Dutch country, Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Longwood Gardens, the Chesapeake Bay, as well as mile wide rivers, mountains, lakes, and a ton of other historical sites.
-------During this time I remodeled my folks basement for them, and while I was at it I built myself a darkroom in one section of it, and that is when I seriously began to learn how to make photographic images, and not just take them. That is when I also bought my first "good" camera, a Nikon-F with the normal 50mm lens, and again, that was also a used one. Over the years that would be followed by other Nikons, which is my main photo system.
-------After a few years in Pa. I moved back out to Calif. and settled down in Huntington Beach for the next 25+ years. From there, weekends and vacations were totally done for photo trips, which regularly included yearly trips to Yosemite, Bodie, Death Valley, and just about every place between San Francisco and San Diego. I would also make many trips back around the Indian reservation areas of Arizona, which I had first gone through on my move from Pa. to Ca. which turned out to be about a 10,000+ mile cross country zig-zag drive, hitting every place I could get to and shoot along the way.
-------All of my photography is self-taught. I did try a college class once, but when the instructor saw some of my work and asked me what I was doing there, I got the message that there was not much else she could teach me, so I was back to attending ol' Self Learning University. I have always found that the best way to learn was by "Doing," which is about how I have learned everything in my life, (more often than not the hard way.)
-------Later I began attending organized "Photo Days" around the southland. These were events where photographers and models could get together to the benefit of both. The photographers got free modeling service, and the models got experience and free prints for their portfolios. Some of the future stars I knew and photographed, who started out modeling at these events included; Bo Derick (Cathy Collins when I knew her), Heather Locklear, Tanya Roberts, Pricilla Barnes (from Three's Company) and several others. While going to those events I got to know the editor of Western Photographer Magazine, which promoted and did stories on all the Photo Day events. I soon started doing short pieces for him, which after some months turned into my own column, which lasted for many years. In fact, I out-lasted four of the magazine's editors. My articles consisted of photo how-tos, travel, product & book reviews, small photo tips, and later on computer graphics.
---- At the same time as I was doing the photo days, I also started to shot for several Hollywood and TV movies, the last one being Heart Like A Wheel. At those I met and photographed many Hollywood stars, such as Barbara Eden, Jeff Bridges, Linda Blair, and many others. A movie set is probably the most boring place on earth, and I quiet that real fast. From there I went back to photographing music concerts again. Mostly country music this time. Years before, in my "Hippy" days, I did a lot of rock concerts since I was able to get right up on the stages to shoot the groups, so I would go to every concert around. That in turn got me a collection of the top name bands of the time, including Chicago, Guess Who, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, and too many others to count. A real fun time! - (What I can remember of it.)
-------In 1991, while searching for a charity group to help out, I found a local Southern Calif. group called Christian Missionary Pilots, which did support work for the missions on most of the Indian reservations throughout the southwest. Having a truck and camper shell, this was a perfect find for me. Three or four times a year I would take a long weekend from my work, load up the truck with as much as it would hold, and hit the road. Most deliveries I made were trips to Arizona, and a usual trip would take from 8-10 hours to get there. After unloading everything, the rest of the weekend would be spent hitting every place around that area I could get to, and shoot from sun up to sun down. My favorite places I'd try to get to most often were Monument Valley, Canyon DeChelly, The Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Antalope "Slot" Canyon, and the mission of San Xavior Del Bac, as well as any old ghost towns I could find that had anything still standing. Speaking of Antalope Canyon, one weekend I was scheduled to make a delivery to Page, Az. but when I called there to confirm delivery, no one answered so I had to cancel the trip. (When I am in Page I always shoot at the slots) The day I would have been there, but for an unanswered phone call, is the day that 11 French tourists died in a flash flood in that slot canyon.
-------I have had many of my images published, but up until 1996 I never had one used for a cover. The July issue of Coast Magazine used one of my night time shots of county fair carnival rides, and it also contained a two-page spread of more of my carnival shots. That issue was followed by both the 1997 February Valantine’s Day issue, the 1997 March Film Festival issue, and then the 1998 April Garden issue.
-------In Sept. 1998 I packed up my life and moved back east. Since I had enough of brown/dry desert type living in California. I wanted to live where everything is green, and where there are REAL rivers and streams, so I planted myself next to the Great Smokie Mountains in Tennesse. In Jan. of 2007 I moved back to Pennsylvania which is where I am living now. (for good) - (I think)
-------At this time I am getting back to years of neglect on the sorting, filing and copyrighting of my images, creating promo postcards and e-mailers, and putting together this web site. I am now also writing regular articles and reviews for this web site. I will continue to do both my shooting and write, but my main project is this web site that I use to showcase my images for stock photo sales. (Stock being, mostly for use by publishers and ad agencies.) I already do all of my own retouching for my photography, as well as on my collection of old family photos that go back five (5) generations. Although I still have all of my darkroom equipment, at this time I only use it for developing B&W Infrared film whenever I use any of that. Otherwise I do some slide film, but mostly digital work now, and print everything on my Epson R2400 using my two Mac G4s, running Adobe PhotoShop CS4 and a ton of PhotoShop plug-ins. (Update, just got a new MacPro with the intel processor. The other 2 Macs are now in the basement for small odd printing jobs and a 2nd online connection.)
-------That is where things stand as of now. Thanks for the visit, and congratulations if you managed to get the whole way through this loooong version!!! --You did a lot better than I could have.
Peace!
Paul