At age 14, I received a Minolta camera with a 50mm lens. At that time I was going to a boarding school at “Ecole Des Roches” in Normandy, France; all students had to do an activity. I selected photography, back then, we took black and white photos and we had to do all the film development and printing.  We had to experience by ourselves the exposure, composition and depth of field.

 

During my college years, I had a Canon F-1; I used it for my family travels and friend’s photos. With the digital cameras, I kept taking those types of photos. To me the picture quality was just not that of film.

 

Having the opportunity for a family trip to Svalbard in Norway’s Arctic, I decided to purchase a Nikon D750 with a few quality lenses. I was exited about the idea of encountering polar bears, arctic fox, and different species of birds, as well as fantastic landscapes. Because of that trip, I fell in love with photography once again. I realized that digital cameras are now as good, if not better than film.

 

Since then, I improved my lens collection and acquired a Hasselblad Medium format camera as well. It is the photographer that makes the picture not the equipment, that being said, good equipment facilitates the task.

 

I quickly noticed, that I just did not want to take the same “post card pictures”. So I explore playing with the exposure time and other settings to get a very different look of the same landscape or object. Mostly everything I know today about photography has been self-taught.

 

I hope that you will enjoy my photos as much as I do. Thank you for taking the time to look at them and purchasing them.

 

Michel Cohen

Photographer.