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Mentor | Dave Black

I love to make photographs. It is as simple as that. I love to make photographs that draw the audience into a captured moment in time.

My education in graphics design and studio drawing lends itself perfectly to this idea of not only capturing the moment, but to do so in such a way that it draws the audience in for a closer look.

While the moment attracts the attention of the viewer, my goal is to hold their attention as well. It is the perfection of the use of light, shadows, background and color, combined with high resolution quality that will keep the audience. I approach each image with these principals in mind.

Striving for perfection means continually learning. They go hand in hand. One of the best ways to learn is to teach. I have been instructing workshops and lecturing about photography since 1986. Lately, the hot topic has been digital. I have been using digital beginning in 1999 and I am convinced of its benefits to both the photographer and the client.

Today the photographic industry is in a wonderful transition. Photographers can produce better quality and have more options to create new and exciting images while the client can enjoy those same advancements and faster production. We all win.

Dave’s Clients, Publications and Workshops
Dave’s work has appeared in a variety of magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, ESPN, Parade and the Wall Street Journal. Publishers such as Simon and Schuster, Bantam Double Day, Pindar Press, Hyperion, Scribner, and Broadway, and television shows on ABC Sports, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, E Entertainment, and the award winning ESPN Sports Century also used Dave’s images.

Commercial clients include Chevy, McDonalds, Reebok, Hallmark, Coca Cola, Xerox, Nikon, Visa, Johnson and Johnson, Kodak, AT&T, East West Banks, NFL Properties, Bogen, Lexar Media and the United States Olympic Committee.

Dave is a regular faculty member and featured speaker with several workshops including Rich Clarkson’s Sports Photography Workshops and Photography at the Summit Workshops series, Nikon’s Churchill Downs and College Series Workshops, Sports Shooter Workshops and the Sports Shooter Academy. Dave also lectures and conducts several of his own workshops at a variety of Colleges and Universities each year.

Dave’s website www.daveblackphotography.com includes two teaching pages that draws over 17,000 readers monthly. Workshop at the Ranch offers instruction on many photographic topics such as Location Lighting, Sports Action, Portraiture, Arena Sport Strobe Lighting and more while On The Road chronicles Dave’s monthly assignments. Each new article features images with step by step instruction along with shooting data and equipment advice.