WILKES-BARRE — Samantha Ward Photography launches with a Grand Opening celebration at Diamond City Studios on Saturday, May 27 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Attendees will have a chance to win the “Ultimate Wedding Experience.”

The Grand Opening features a ribbon-cutting ceremony, delicious refreshments, and spectacular giveaways. You’ll have the chance to meet new business-owner, Samantha Ward and see examples of her work. Polish Connection, who features their kielbasa and pierogis at festivals, is catering the event’s appetizers.

Ward is a photographer who specializes in capturing unique stories, offering services like portraits, events, and weddings. May 27 will mark the official unveiling of her new brand that will provide on-site photography service.

“I think people come to us because they understand the need to keep memories preserved. We hear every photographer say they are a storyteller — I think we go beyond storytelling,” said Samantha Ward.

She provides photography services such as portraits, events, and weddings. By now providing on-site photography services of her own to NEPA, she’ll be flexible to capture clients in a local park, private property, on-location, or even at Diamond City Studios. “We come to you rather than you come to us,” said Ward.

She said that this way, each setting can be unique for each person. No two photos ever the same.

There are thirteen local vendors who signed up to support Samantha Ward’s Grand Opening. Pisano Wines will provide a gift basket to giveaway with wine and snacks, and all the rest pulled together to offer the “Wedding Great Experience” to supporters.

The Great Wedding Experience basket includes:

• Samantha Ward Photography – $300 off 4hr,6hr, or full day wedding services.
• Rainbow Jewelers – “Something New” Paper Clip Bracelet
• Folks Butterfly Garms – Butterfly Release Coupon
• LB Entertainment – 4 Hours of DJ Service
• Patchwork Planting – 30min Space donated for Free engagement shoot by Samantha Ward Photography and simple make up and hair by stylist Pam Snarski.
• Barber Bros Barber Shop – $100 Barbershop Credit.
• Buttercup Events Co. – Free balloon display for couples event.
• Ceremonies by Lori – Free vow counseling
• Furrari Pet Taxi Co. – 10% off and free wedding outfit/ accessories
• Tuxedo Junction – Coupons off tux rentals
• Glam Trend Beauty Studio – Certificate for gloss and blowout and product
• SammiSam Snaps and Silhouettes – Bride and Groom vinyls
• Cakes by Denise Gilbert- Bride and Groom Cookies

Jonathan Edwards of 570 Drone and Diamond City Studios also helped organize the event and was happy to support Samantha Ward Photography’s unveiling to the public! Samantha Ward said the local arts community is all close, and she made a lot of amazing connections through the NEPA Camera Club. “We are all a tight knit group. Even though we’re competition we seem to like help each other.”

Ward said it was amazing how many small businesses reached out to welcome her into the wedding venue community when she filed for her LLC in March. Now, this Grand Opening celebration will mark the official opening of her Luzerne County-based brand!

Ward said this business opening is years in the making as she’s built up her portfolio. Before this, Ward did wedding photography on a freelance basis. She’s also a mother to a nine-year-old daughter and she wanted to be sure to break any generational patterns moving forward. “When we started this journey, we were pretty young together. This is a pretty big deal for me and for my family,” said Ward. “ — This is my dream job since I was little and I can’t believe it’s actually happening for us.”

Although it’s definitely a celebration for Samantha Ward Photography, she said it’s really a party for YOU. She’s looking forward to preserving the most important stories in each of our lives and offering something special with the giveaways lined up at the event.

“Many overthink and believe they don’t have the budget for a wedding photographer, but we want to give everyone the opportunity to have a great memorable experience so that they can enjoy their big day.”

Ensure your next big moment in life is captured the way it deserves. Come out to support Samantha Ward Photography’s Grand Opening on Saturday, May 27 in Wilkes-Barre and maybe even win the Ultimate Wedding Experience!

Remember Fotomat?

Somebody in a little box sat in the middle of the parking lot at West Goshen Shopping Center. They were alone because there wasn’t room for anybody else. You dropped off canisters of film from your car.

A couple days later you revisited and picked up paper prints of your photographs. It was expensive and time consuming.

Thankfully, times have changed. With digital cameras, we now get instant gratification. In this virtual world we can almost instantly send photos to grandmom with Facebook, text, or email.

Does anybody remember postcards? Now our friends can even follow us along on a road trip, almost in real time.

Right away, we can view our recently snapped photos through our cell phones, which we lug around much more often than most of us carried around a “real” camera.

Fotomat didn’t have a chance. It’s gone like buggy whips, legroom on airplanes and so many print editions of newspapers.

And, for better or worse, we regularly post photos of meals, babies, dogs and sunsets.

Now, I shoot photos with my cell for the paper. The quality is pretty good, but I miss out on the darkroom experience.

Call me a reactionary, but we are missing something. I loved to work in the darkroom developing film and prints. Like the ketchup ad, it was all about the anticipation.

I’d zap a 35 mm negative with a bright enlarger bulb, shooting an image onto a blank piece of photographic paper.

I still remember the divine smell of photographic chemicals—developer, stop, fix, hypo.

Place the print face up in developer under a red safe light and watch it gradually appear. Time consuming, yes, but pure black and white magic.

We’d fool around with a pinhole camera. Thirty second exposure times replaced 125th of a second. We created “positives” rather than negatives and everything that was black turned white and all that was white was black. Subjects became ghosts.

The pin hole camera was a Quaker Oats box with a small hole poked through a piece of taped-on tinfoil. Because the photographic paper was placed on a curved surface–inside the oat meal box– everything was joyfully distorted and at weird angles.

Photography is fun!  So, it was nice to attend a meeting of the Chester County Camera Club, which regularly meets to exchange ideas, discuss techniques and share their enthusiasm for photography.

That night’s speaker was Svenne Juul, the club’s outings coordinator.

Juul showed us something that he refers to as “Storytelling through Living Stills.”

With a laptop and a screen, he used several still photos to tell a living, breathing story. It looked a little like a movie, but the photos were taken in rapid sequence with a still camera.

“You are telling a more complete story than with just a single image,” Juul said. “It looks like there is life in the still image.”

One sequence depicted athletes running a foot race. It’s an exciting technique and Juul seeks both a patent and the help of club members. Local photographers are going to be part of the process to improve this already way cool technique.

Then it got complicated. Most of 30 or so people in the room started peppering Juul with questions. Had I missed something here? Together, these photographers were already intensely embracing this new process. Like a developing print, they were exposing the concept, improving on it and learning from the inventor.

There was a buzz in the room as photographers were collaborating after learning about something they’d just heard about. Although technically, the conversation was way over my head, it was fun.

Past club president Howard Sundwall said that since retiring in 2013, he’s bought six expensive cameras. We talked about the changes.

He said that an advantage of digital verses film is the ability to post process and use software to photo shop.

Sundwall told me that the brain has two hemispheres—the right, the creative side, and the left, the technical side.

“With photography today, both sides of the brain are actually active,” Sundwall told me. “One side is dedicated to making a beautiful artistic image, while the other side can be directed to technology that today’s cameras and software make available.”

Current club president Denise Molzahn enjoys sharing beauty with friends and family and practicing art through photography. She agreed with Sundwall and likes to improve and impact the image with digital software.

Virginia Apostolacus is the vice president and a former president of the 134 member club. She enjoys creating and photographing everything, with few distractions.

Since 1933, photographers have been gathering in Chester County. That year, 12 men calling themselves the West Chester Camera Club met in an old garage on Church Street, while another club met in an upstairs room of the Coatesville fire station. The two clubs held annual competitions until the Coatesville club disbanded during World War II.

An obituary notice from the Daily Local News in 1991 credited Herbert Jeeves, Bill Yetter, Len Zeidman and Hank Rosenberg with founding the Chester County Camera Club in 1982. Since then, the shutterbugs have met in banks, churches, restaurants and community buildings to share information and photographs, to develop their skills and to enjoy each other’s company.

Betsy Wilson is a former club president.

“I love the way it makes me observe nature, people and life,” Wilson said about photography.

The club recently took field trips to Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia’s Chinatown, the Cowtown Rodeo, Hagley Museum, Valley Forge, Reading Terminal Market and the Keurner Farm, which inspired The Wyeth Family.

“It is a wonderful place to photograph and step back in time,” Wilson said about the Keurner Farm.

Wilson talked about the ability to snap photos locally.

“We don’t need to travel to get good photographs,” she said, “So many want to travel to Ireland, which is great, but you can observe beauty in your back yard and ordinary subjects like Andrew Wyeth did.”

Member Carol DeGuiseppi likes photography because she can capture the moment.

“I like to remember things and I like to share what I love,” she said. “I like to create art with my photographs.

DeGuiseppi is a volunteer at Longwood Gardens and said that everywhere you look there is beauty.

“I’m always seeing something I haven’t seen before,” she said, about Longwood. “It gives me ideas for my garden at home.”

Get inspired. Create art. Make something great. Record for posterity. Capture an instant. Have fun with your cell camera! And, no Fotomat is required.

Bill Rettew is a weekly columnist and Chester County native. He will tell you that while photos are free, phones are still expensive. The best way to contact him is at brettew@dailylocal.com

The day before Grimes gave birth to X AE A-Xii, her first child with Elon Musk, the Canadian electro-pop star took part in “The Last A.I. Robot On Earth,” a photoshoot conducted by Chinese visual artist Chen Man. The first fruit of this collaboration is an NFT collection, Silent Noise: Episode 01, which drops today.

The release is comprised of a limited-edition run of 500 NFTs priced at $100 each on LiveArt, an art and culture-focused Web3 platform.

Silent Noise is Chen’s first venture into the world of NFTs and has been designed as a multi-chapter experiential adventure offering collectors added opportunities and perks with each new drop.

An NFT from the collection Silent Noise: Episode 01 by Chen Man. Courtesy LiveArt.

The central image sees the high-end fashion photographer lean heavily into digital fantasy and manipulation. Grimes stands on the rubble of an urban wasteland surrounded by the fuchsia smoke of rocket ships and the tendrils of multicolored seaweed.

She stares down the camera (and into our soul) with supreme confidence—perhaps such calm in a moment of collapse stems from her cyborg identity and the fact she’s holding a golden sword. The musician, who has herself earned $5.8 million in NFT sales, is also depicted wearing a tattered shirt that reads “X AE A-12 MUSK.”

Grimes on the photoshoot with Chen Man. Photo courtesy LiveArt.

The timing might be coincidental, but at a moment of growing anxiety surrounding the potentially calamitous directions of A.I., Chen and Grimes present an alternative, open-armed approach with the creators expressing a passion for A.I., its origin, and future.

“Photography is a fantasy, it allows one to dream, it allows artists to create new worlds,” Chen said in a statement. “This NFT collection has allowed me to have more experimentation with photography. I am much freer to impose my own artistic vision into the genre, to push the limits of photography without any constraints.”

Preparatory work for the Grimes NFT. Image courtesy LiveArt.

The host, LiveArt, was founded by former auction market veterans and differentiates itself from other platforms in part through the use of a token, $ART, which grants holders additional rewards and exclusive opportunities. “This is one of the most innovative, complete, and well-thought-out projects we’ve seen,” Boris Pevzner, CEO of LiveArt, said in a statement. “It has rockets, A.I., and the Musks, who are tech royalty. The buzz is off the charts.”

Following the “Silent Noise” NFT drop, the second chapter will offer The Memory Brick, in which collectors will be “immortalized” through putting forward “biological memories” that will be stored in a hybrid physical-digital art piece.

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Photographers can learn a lot from the realm of the visual arts, and few artists were more groundbreaking than Pablo Picasso. What can Picasso’s works, approach, and philosophies teach us about modern photography? This excellent video tutorial discusses the topic and offers a wider range of useful advice for growing as a creative. 

Coming to you from Peter Forsgård, this fantastic video tutorial discusses what photographers can learn from Pablo Picasso’s work and philosophies. My composition teacher always had a Picasso quote taped on his door that said: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist,” which is something that has stuck with me ever since the first time I saw it. I think a common mistake many people make is forgoing learning fundamentals of technique, composition, etc. under the belief that anything can be art. And while that is true, the idea of such rules is not that artistic expression should be contained in some set of boundaries, but rather that by learning common practices and ideas, you will have built a secure foundation in both craft and knowledge of the history of the art from which to begin that artistic exploration. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Forsgård.