Welcome to this issue of PHOTOLounge Customer Spotlight. This month features John Myers as he shares his photos and some words about how photography plays a roll in his life.

1. What role do pictures play in your life or work?

Photography is my outlet from the stresses of life and of lawyering at Montogomery McCracken. My picture taking is a mostly private realm of creativity and expression.

2. What do you take pictures of?

I favor inanimate objects, because they are less likely to object to the lens pointed at them; but in reality I take pictures of what interests me. Broadly stated, that takes me from landscape to musicians, with stops along the way for family, architecture, and macro subjects.

3. What inspires you to take pictures?

I love the idea of being able to evoke a memory or emotion with a picture. With no drawing ability, the camera lets me do that. When I look at old pictures I or others have taken, I love the images and memories – other than the precise image being looked at – that stream by.

4. Describe your camera and what is involved in printing your images?

The Nikon 8400 is my favorite, with its extremely wide angle zoom, and more options than I have learned to use. I sometimes use an 8800 for people, concerts, and such, because of the longer lens. Though Ravid has pestered me to upgrade to the d200, I am still fighting. I love the compactness of these cameras; and when the object of the lens is inanimate, the slight shutter delay is no problem. For editing, I am a fan of Picassa and the PhotoLounge website. I have yet to master Photoshop, and have yet to want to.

5. Do you share and exhibit your printed work?

My friends get photos from me, and my office and home are piled with them, but for the most part, I am limited to such private exhibition. Mugshots, in Fairmount, however, has given me their walls for a month.

6. How does the PhotoLounge help you present your vision?

PhotoLounge is my darkroom. Period. I have no working printer; my old bathroom/darkroom supplies are boxed in the basement. I am convenient to the shop, so my e-orders get to me within the day of ordering, usually, which is faster than I ever produced for myself. And the PhotLounge printers far exceeds anything I ever had, or could afford.

7. Tell us about the pictures you shared

(From top to bottom)

1. We were in Lhasa, Tibet, on Rosh Hashanah, 2005. I was in temple that day, but this Buddhist temple. This is a virtually untouched photo. The light streaming in is colored by the incense given off by the burning Yak butter offerings. I can still smell and feel that room.
2. Our perspective on China’s rules is that they can be pretty oppressive. Of course, the Chinese tell us they provide for an orderly society. The wonderful park near our apartment in Beijing greeted us daily with this sign. It always made me laugh, because I hear this voice [in English, of course] saying, “have a wonderful time here; enjoy yourself fully, BUT….!”
3. I was impatiently waiting for the end of a seemingly endless shopping foray at the Beijing Dirt Market – where you can buy anything as long as you don’t need it to be genuine. Having stood in one place for about 20 minutes, grumbling to myself, I managed to actually see these wonderful lanterns in the stall right next to me. The light was perfect; the colors vibrant; and I turned into a lover of the Dirt and other markets.
4. We bought a Tibetan rug – actually, two - from these weavers in Lhasa. When we arrived at the shop, the women were in the parking lot, sorting a newly opened bale of raw wool. There was no English spoken, but I jumped right in and, with motions, got them to teach me how to draw out the raw, greasy wool, for spinning, dyeing and weaving, all of which occurred through the door at the rear of the photo. They were thrilled to pose for this and other photos of the process. The next day, we brought back prints for them – a joy of digital photography is that you can get an instant print even at 13,000 feet, in Lhasa – which they accepted with such glee that our rugs got infected with it. It seemed this was the first time they had been given pictures of themselves. Amazing how my living room rug makes me smile.
5. China is a country of slogans. It defines their laws, their diplomacy, and nearly every facet of life. Sometimes they are translated, as here, but more often, they appear as calligraphy indecipherable to me. “Step forward for Civilization” is the best of the best, without question. Some may think that, surely, “Workers of the world unite,” would be better, but that is only because the context of this “step forward…” is obscure: The slogan appears on the wall over a urinal in Tsingtao. My good friend, Zhang Mo, actually took this picture, because, for once, I did not have my camera around my neck. But, lesson learned: I now enter men’s rooms with a camera.