A local wildlife photographer has maintained a vivid outlook on life after a battle with rectal cancer.

Nearly two years after his diagnosis, he is only discovering more and more that he desires to sharpen his focus on his longtime passion: wildlife photography.

Pace Clyncke has called Greeley home for the past 22 years. As a kid, he grew up with a love for the outdoors, paired with a love for film and photography. Around 2017, he found wildlife photography to be the perfect fit.

“It’s not the only thing that gets me up in the morning, but it’s something I almost need to do before I go to bed,” he said.

Clyncke snaps pictures of animals, whether feathered or furry, roaming the outdoors around Weld County. As an avid outdoor enthusiast, he is out and about, predominantly in Greeley, Windsor and other northern Colorado locations, whenever he has the chance to take photos of wildlife species.

As people drive up and down Weld roads, many don’t know what’s mere feet away from the paved road — “a hidden gem right under your nose,” according to Clyncke. Several wildlife sites host different species all over Weld County, Clyncke said, while pointing out a great blue heron in a tree off the Poudre River Trail near 59th Street.

His favorite animals to photograph are owls and bald eagles, which can be found all around the county, according to Clyncke.

New outlook on life

In November 2021, Clyncke faced a setback in his life when a colonoscopy revealed he had rectal cancer. He immediately began going through radiation before progressing to chemotherapy in 2022. Throughout his treatment, Clyncke had three surgeries, including the shrinking and removal of his tumor.

“As of now, my last scan, everything is good,” Clyncke said.

Once Clyncke fully recovered, he decided to return his focus to wildlife photography — a passion he maintained even when he was battling cancer.

Clyncke could feel himself escape from the real world when he stepped into uncongested, peaceful outdoor locations and took pictures of the beautiful creatures that came and went.

“It was a release for sure,” he said. “It gave me an out.”

Clyncke finds peace where the wildlife lies and flies.

Along with Clyncke’s family, who he credits with keeping him going through his treatment, cancer allowed him to look at life through a new lens. The scare has made him realize a person never knows when their time is up and that everyone only has one life to live.

“You don’t realize you only have one life until you could lose the one you have,” Clyncke said.

This outlook redirected his fixation on his desire for more time to accomplish things in his life, such as taking his photography hobby and turning it into more. In addition to his day job at Premier Solutionz in Loveland, Clyncke is working hard to make a living off his passion.

Community connections

Networking is what has helped his photography side hustle grow, Clyncke said. Over the years, he has gone on to volunteer for the city of Greeley, he’s dabbled in multiple freelance opportunities and he is selling more and more of his prints to customers.

People can spot his work hanging on and off at local coffee shops in Greeley, including Aunt Helen’s. He also has his photography in the Sanderosa Art Gallery in Laporte, as well as the Loveland Chamber of Commerce.

Clyncke’s deep connections across northern Colorado habe also led to exciting opportunities such as his participation in Art in the Park in Loveland and the Arts Picnic in Greeley.

“Everybody can take pictures … obviously your pictures have to be pretty good … but it’s who knows you’re out there and being able to connect with the public,” Clyncke said. “There’s a connection that needs to be made and established.”

For more information about Clyncke and his photography, go to pace-photography.com.

Sir Roger A. Deakins is widely considered to be one of the greatest cinematographers of all time. He has won two Academy Awards and sixteen nominations for his cinematography of over 70 feature films.

In 2021 he published a coffee-table book Byways (Damiani) of his B&W photographs captured over the last 50 years while traveling and shooting movies worldwide.

Deakins (born 1949) has spent much of his career encircled by film sets. He finds working on movies as a cinematographer to be stressful. This demanding environment does not get any better with experience, involving collaboration and coordination with the director, actors, and various crew.

On the other hand, photography is genuinely independent. It provides him with a sort of release and relaxation from the stress of work – whether on the weekend off or in between shoots as director of photography. He has shot B&W photos from Bristol to Berlin to Budapest.

“My process is pretty straightforward,” Deakins tells PetaPixel. “I enjoy walking and exploring new and also familiar places. Sometimes I see an image that seems to strike me as interesting, but more often, I can spend hours just observing without shooting a single frame.

“What can I say? It [photography] really is not something I analyze. I love finding images.”

Unlike his meticulously planned screenwork, his black-and-white shots are casual street photographs. He does not have very many negatives, and with digital, he erases whatever he does not like. And firstly, he is not a prolific shooter. Even when he goes out intending to take photos, he often returns home without a single image.

Deakins studied photography at an art college in Bath (west of London, England) but does not necessarily apply the rules of photography to his filmmaking.

“I am familiar with the ‘rule of thirds’, but I have not considered it a conscious part of my approach since I attended art college in the 1960s,” he says.

“I always loved painting since I was very young, but it was not until I was at Bath Academy that I looked to photography to express my thoughts. How did it happen? I suspect my paintings were quite naturalistic, which was out of fashion in the 1960s.”

“There are probably a few painters whose work has inspired me more than photographers. There are so many great photographers and image makers that mentioning only one or two would be too simplistic.”

Color is a Distraction

Although Deakins has published Byways, a collection of his 50 years of street photography, he has no secret sauce on the subject.

“I can’t say anything is important about street photography,” says the photographer. “Whatever is important to one person may be of no consequence to another. That is what makes the photographic image interesting. We all have a different ‘eye.’

The one thing that strikes the viewer is that Deakins’ cinematography is in vivid color, but his personal photography is all in B&W.

“I used to develop my own film, and I always loved the simplicity of a B&W image,” explains Deakins.

“Color can be pleasing and vibrant and be about nothing but itself. It can complicate an image, and I am always striving for simplicity.

“I find color a distraction to the ideas within a frame, though, that said, there are some great photographers who work in color. I just can’t.”

Deakins grew up inspired by the classic black-and-white images of photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Bill Brandt.

The celebrated director of photography does shoot color photos on his digital cameras but finds that they become more powerful when he converts them to B&W.

Cinematography and photography are entirely independent, with no connection between the two for Deakins.

“They are very different ways of seeing,” he clarifies. “My still photographs are my personal sketches that either stand or fall on their own. What I do as a cinematographer is so very different.”

The B&W Photographs

Deakins remembers taking his first photograph in 1969 in Bournemouth, England. A man and a woman are eating lunch on a bench outside a ladies’ room with a sign that says, “Keep it to Yourself.”

“I used to hitchhike to various locations and spend the day with my camera,” recounts the cinematographer of the twenty-third Bond film, Skyfall. “Sometimes, I even slept on the beach to catch the early light.

“The photograph [referenced] was taken one day when I had made my way to Bournemouth and was just walking the promenade. What attracted me to the image was the juxtaposition of the elements in the frame, the older couple with their lunch, the restroom and the sign ‘Keep it to Yourself.’

Deakins tells The Guardian, “I returned to it [the scene at the seaside in 2004] throughout the day and took variations of this shot, but none were as strong. I didn’t speak to the woman here – I rarely make conversation when I’m taking photographs – but she gave me a kind of wordless nod after looking at me and wondering what on earth I was doing.

“Just as I went to take the photograph, she looked across at the poster. It was the perfect moment. I loved the juxtaposition of this elderly lady holding her umbrella at the height of the British summer, contrasting with the semi-naked young woman lying in the sunshine on a boardwalk. I liked the age gap between the two.”

In the foreword to his Byways book, Deakins questions, “Whether without a detailed explanation of how and why a picture came about, can it mean the same to the viewer as it does to the photographer?

“Knowing that the image of the eagle was taken in Romania and is of a statue that stands sentinel over a German war grave can only change the relationship between the photograph and the viewer.”

This shot was taken of Salisbury Plain (central southern England) at dusk at the end of a scouting day for locations, and the tree is shown at the end of the film 1917. The film, which netted Deakins his second Oscar for Cinematography, is created to look like the whole movie is just one uninterrupted take or shot without any cuts, thanks to the artistry of DP Deakins and director Sam Mendes.

Deakins has the patience to wait months for a photo. He lived a few miles from this cliff and jogged the path. He waited for winter when the tree would be bare.

When he found that they cut down the bracken and the tree had opened, he saw his chance and captured varying images with different skies. But the one he loved was the one with the plain bright sky right behind the tree and the light shining off the water.

Many images in his photographic oeuvre have harsh lighting, and Deakins also uses it in his cinematography, but it is finely controlled. In his latest film Empire of Light, there is a scene when harsh lighting is required to show a character’s raging paranoia.

Deakins took the shade off a table lamp and used a bare bulb. The harsh light almost bleaches out the face of the actor, but it is still well controlled. The DP stuck a piece of tape on the side of the bulb facing the camera so that it would not flare the lens, which he hates.

When Deakins shot the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) in Mississippi, it was a lush green. But the look that was desired was an autumnal yellow. The DP spent a couple of months fine-tuning the look and desaturating the entire image. This resulted in it being the first feature film that was digitally color-corrected in its entirety and earned him his fourth Academy Award nod for a nomination.

A person was throwing a stick off the promenade, and the dog jumped after it. Deakins got into a position and waited for him to throw it again. He shot from a low angle, and just as the shutter clicked, luckily, the dog looked at his camera.

“The Joy of Flight is a very simple photograph,” says the Englishman. “It is easily read, and I think it works as a small image.” [Referring to Magnum Photos using it for their last print sale.]

Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario was shot in New Mexico. At the end of the shooting day, Deakins would take off with his trusted still camera looking for the last traces of light. Sometimes he would drive to the same location and wait for late-day thunderstorms to produce the shot he visualized like the lightning bolt.

For the lightning strike bisecting the building, Deakins let the shutter click away and luckily landed the perfect frame.

Still Cameras and Movie (Video) Cameras

Deakins’ first camera was a Praktica film SLR. The digital camera he has used the most is the Leica M8. The movie/video camera he has relied on the most in the last five years is the Arri Alexa LF (sensor slightly larger than full frame).

“An Alexa LF…I like the image it produces, and I like the way it fits me as an operator,” says the cinematographer.

Deakins, knighted in 2013 for his service to film, is not much of a gearhead who desires the latest and greatest features in his cameras.

“[Camera features] would depend on the project in hand,” he says. “I don’t need many of the additional features that are being built into newer camera systems. That is why I love the Leica M8 or M9 cameras. They are really simple manual cameras.”

Deakins has also used the Nikon F3 and the Leica M6, which PetaPixel selected as one of “the Best 35mm Film Cameras of All Time.” He owns two Leica M9 cameras, one of which is monochrome and his favorite camera.

Although the cinematographer uses some of the most expensive and advanced cameras in his professional work, he is not dismissive of the humble cell phone camera.

“You can create an image in any way you want,” he says. “The subject and the framing are more important than the means of capture.”

Deakins often uses a still camera on movie sets to record the environment.

“I simply use a still camera to record an image of a location or a set so that I can then use it as a reference,” he says. “These photos … are only spacial references [and not to examine the lighting].”

Today’s small mirrorless cameras can produce high-quality video, but Deakins does not believe this can lead to an increased interest in filmmaking/cinematography by still photographers.

“Shooting a film is so different from capturing a single still frame,” explains the master. “I don’t see why there would be any more or less crossover simply through a change in technology and camera size in particular. Ansel Adams’ still camera was pretty big!”

“I think there are many ways to find and explore filmmaking,” he says. “Perhaps photography offers a way in, but I also know renowned stills photographers who started out as filmmakers.”

In the older days of movie making with film, the director and others couldn’t view what the cinematographer was capturing, so “dailies” were created. These were the first positive prints from the negative photographed the previous day and viewed by the director, actors, and crew.

“There are advantages as well as disadvantages,” says Deakins. “The technology itself is not at fault, but how it is used is important.

“Personally, I like showing a director what I am thinking and what the image looks like rather than waiting for any comments they might have in the dailies screening room the next day.” [The reference here is to the monitors where the director can see what the cinematographer is capturing in real time.]

The Beginnings in England

Deakins never planned on becoming a cinematographer. His first passion was photography. He finished art school in Bath and then worked for a small arts center in North Devon. His job was to photograph local scenes. It was then that the National Film School opened.

“After I discovered a love for a photographic image, it seemed natural to explore whether documentary filmmaking might be another avenue of exploration,” remembers Deakins. “Only when The National Film and Television School opened up, did I see an opportunity in that direction.”

Deakins got a spot on the second attempt, which moved his life and career toward cinematography.

The DP had initially been interested in documentary photography, so he worked on the same genre of documentaries as a budding cinematographer. Some directors asked him to work on fiction films and he gladly obliged. When no more work was found in London, he landed a movie in the US. Next, he was approached by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men), and the rest, as they say, is history.

Deakins has still not been able to forget his attraction for the British seaside, despite living for many years in Santa Monica, California. He grew up in Torquay, a seaside town on the southern edge of England. The history and nostalgia of the Victorian and Gregorian structures still linger in his mind.

Deakins never intended to exhibit his photographs which was just a personal hobby for him. During COVID and lockdown, he sat down with his wife, James, to compile a record, which led to a book. Byways, his first photo book has been successful with requests for exhibitions worldwide. So, maybe we will see a second offering from the master cinematographer.

You can see more of Roger Deakins’ photos on his website.

Byways (Damiani) has a large collection of Deakins’ B&W photos.

About the author: Phil Mistry is a photographer and teacher based in Atlanta, GA. He started one of the first digital camera classes in New York City at The International Center of Photography in the 90s. He was the director and teacher for Sony/Popular Photography magazine’s Digital Days Workshops. You can reach him here.

Image credits: All photos © Roger Deakins. Header photo: Sir Roger Deakins portrait © Misan Harriman; The Joy of Flight – Teignmouth, 2000 © Sir Roger Deakins. This image was selected by Magnum Photos as part of its recently concluded Magnum and Friends print sale.

It feels like stories about AI have dominated photography news over the last year. Part of me keeps ignoring the headlines as an irrelevance, but chirping away in the background, the other part of me keeps asking: what does it all mean? What’s AI capable of? Will it really be a revolution? And perhaps the biggest question of them all: are photographers at risk of becoming obsolete because of AI?

Only in certain circumstances and only if we let it, according to this video by Lucy Lumen. In a thoughtful and interesting discussion, Lumen outlines her thoughts on this contentious topic and ways that we can counter the rise of AI. She even goes as far as saying that it could save photography. 

Her first piece of advice for photographers is to lean into the human element of photography. AI represents the antithesis of mistakes and happy accidents, and often, this human element in the image-making process creates beautiful, memorable, or even career-changing images. 

Secondly, she suggests that now is the perfect time for photographers to reflect and think about what makes them unique and how they can add value for clients.

This is a fantastic way of looking at the issue. AI might gain a significant share in the stock photography market, but it’s doubtful that clients will be looking to buy AI-generated wedding photos or magazine editors will be buying AI-generated documentary or travel images. In these fields, authenticity is key. Photographers should look at what makes them special and articulate that to their market. 

As for her thoughts on how AI can save photography, you’ll have to watch the video and find out for yourself. 

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“I don’t like to shoot photojournalist still photography,” says photographer Bobby Sheehan in an interview with the Phoblographer. “It’s just not my thing. When I do aim a camera at people, I tend to use the camera as an emotional surveillance tool.” He continues to state that what he’s trying to do is possibly reveal what they’re thinking. Some of this is clearly shown in his work, and more will be revealed in the new documentary about Bobby called The Bowery Boy.

All images by Bobby Sheehan. Used with permission.

The Creative Side

Bobby is a New Yorker with a photography portfolio from the 1970s and on. He’s photographed tons of punk rock bands and other musicians. But some of his most fascinating work is his street photography. When you look at it, you’ll see many painterly scenes that simply amaze you. According to him, a huge part of this has to do with Bobby’s adoration of seeking areas entirely ignored by the rest of the world. Whether it’s a crack on the sidewalk with a puddle of water reflecting the sun, a dark alleyway, or some unique perspective on a building, Bobby is creatively into it.

For me, it’s all about shapes and light. And further, without limitations and conventional use of light. Imagine an isolated area that has virtually no light, if you pay more attention, you will find a few foot candles in the farkness, then a whole new world of shadows and light presents itself. It takes a lot more effort to find these sorts of images, it’s a very manual process. You need patience while working to find an image hiding in plain sight.

Bobby Sheehan

Because of this, Bobby finds shooting at night therapeutic. First and foremost, he likes that there are fewer people and distractions. It’s when he feels he can remain still with my lens open without anyone entering the frame. But it’s also led him into curious instances. Sometimes, he’s had to convince muggers to leave him alone. And he once felt scared enough to pack his gear bag and leave when a homeless man accused him of being on his turf, he tells us.

How Bobby Sheehan Got Into Photography

Bobby got into photography a long time ago and has a fascinating story about it. When he was already a professional photographer, a photo of him less than two years of age was discovered in a storage box. “The image is of me posed against a wall holding a knife/shiv with the shadow of a male photographer cast along the wall next to me,” he explains. “I am fairly certain the shadow is my father.” Bobby never knew his father growing up, so he thinks that it caused a lifelong obsession with photography because he wanted to have a relationship with his dad.

Bobby has shot with various cameras over the years. But his first love was the Nikon F and a 50mm f1.4 lens. He used it to photograph for the Village Voice, Soho News and to photograph bands at CBGB’s and many other rock clubs in NYC. He also used the Hasselblad 500CM and an 80mm lens for portraits. Once he had an established portfolio, he got a scholarship to NYU.

From there, he became a fashion photographer and director of fashion and art videos in the early 1980s. His work caught the attention of Andy Warhol, who reached out to him for a collaboration; but it never happened because Warhol passed away before the shoot.

In the late 1980s, Bobby went deeper into photography as part of giving up on drinking and substance abuse. That’s when he bought a 4×5 camera and started photographing in the NYC streets at night. Drawing on inspiration from Dean Chamberlain’s long exposures, he wandered around NYC looking for dark spaces to leave his shutter open. “I would close the aperture down to f45 and because I was using ASA 100 sheet film, my exposures would range from a few minutes to a few hours,” says Bobby. “Although I used a light meter, there was a lot of guesswork in calculating such long-time exposures. For many images, I would go back to the same areas and reshoot plates over and over again until I got the right exposure.” He loved the results. It allowed him to be much more creative than how he worked with his smaller format cameras.

Mix into all this the fact that he’d cross-process his photos to get a super grainy and saturated look.

I would often use slower shutter speeds for impressionist motion blurs; the shapes still register on film but aren’t too transparent. 

Bobby Sheehan

Now here’s where it gets very fascinating! During the daytime, Bobby would use a Nikon 1000mm lens to get extreme closeups of New Yorkers. “I wanted to get close enough with my lens to see into their eyes… sneak peeks into the psyche of the humans walking amongst themselves,” he shares. “All disconnected from each other with their own thoughts circulating inside their heads. Interestingly, there were people who sensed that someone was watching, and they’d spot me across the street with my Nikon F pointed at them.” Sometimes he was spotted, but no one ever said anything to him.

Bobby Sheehan Shares Thoughts on AI Photography

When we look at Bobby’s work, it appears to be what we call unapologetically human. An AI wouldn’t necessarily understand it. So we asked Bobby for his thoughts on what’s happening in the photography world. While acknowledging that young image-makers have a lot of great access, there have been a lot of imposters in things like professional landscape photography. “It’s hard enough for talented photographers to have successful and sustainable careers in an overly crowded workforce,” he states. “So, the idea that artificial intelligence may soon be able to take work away from humans is horrific. There are people saying that it will create new avenues for artists, but I would argue that artificial intelligence could be a creative cancer feeding on its hosts, and we’re the hosts.”

Bobby wouldn’t want a computer creating a soulless image of a loved one. And he’d hate to lose jobs because of it. Further, he thinks it’s also an artistic nightmare. “Personally, I love to feel the hand of the artist on a piece of art,” he shares. “Whether it’s a painting, a piece of music or a  photograph there is a human fingerprint on that art. I’m fine with being viewed as old fashioned because I’d rather be one of the humans not going away without a fight.”

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It’s been a busy month on N-Photo magazine. First, I captured a long exposure of a waterfall before visiting the Cornish coast to capture summer blooms. Then, I photographed the Milky Way core (in the middle of the day) and finished by capturing a blurry image of the Loch Ness monster. And that was all before I photographed a portrait of a person – who doesn’t exist, I might add – and a zebra, riding a unicycle in front of a supermoon… 

If you haven’t already guessed, I didn’t actually photograph any of those increasingly absurd images. Instead, I used an artificial-intelligence image generator: DALL•E 2. This clever browser-based software uses AI to generate images of whatever you type into a search bar. 

• Why not try out the best AI image generators for yourself

Admittedly, it’s not perfect and it struggles to deal with more complicated or abstract requests. However, it’s seemingly appeared out of nowhere and joins a growing list of web-based trends and technologies – such as deepfakes and NFTs – that have the potential to dramatically shift the status quo.

AI is nothing new. Its implementation dates back to the Fifties and today varying forms of AI are used in a variety of industries, including healthcare, cybersecurity and, of course, photography. That’s right, deep-learning AF is AI-driven – and so is Adobe’s proprietary Adobe Sensei. These are all practical and exciting uses of AI, but on the other hand, there’s this whole dystopian idea of AI becoming sentient and inevitably attempting to destroy the world (ahem, The Terminator).

Here’s hoping that a chess computer hellbent on world domination is a little way off yet, but whether or not AI poses a threat to creatives is arguably a different matter. Last September, an AI-generated artwork knowingly won the digital category in the Colorado State Fair’s 2022 Fine Arts competition, which caught plenty of media attention and caused a bit of a ruckus online. And a book published in 2018 called 1 The Road is supposedly the first AI-generated novel ever made.

The question that most interests me, though, is if cheap AI creatives become virtually indistinguishable from human works, where does that leave the creative industry? Photography would surely be affected. And yet, I think it would fare better than many other mediums by its very nature. Most genres of photography revolve around capturing a specific moment in time or a specific person. 

So, we won’t have to say, “Hasta la vista, baby” to proper photography until AIs are given legs. Hopefully…

If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading about the best Nikon Z lenses (opens in new tab) for FX and DX cameras. If you’re clinging to your DSLR you can also check out the best lenses for the Nikon D850 (opens in new tab), and it you’re embracing the revolution then take a look at the best lenses for the Nikon Z50 (opens in new tab).

Kente fabric has been woven on the west coast of Africa for 3,000 years. Traditionally used for the robes of Asante leaders, its vibrant patterns became symbolic of the Ghanaian and pan-African independence movements led by Kwame Nkrumah in the 1950s. The young Ghanaian photographer Derrick Ofosu Boateng weaves many of the associations of that history into his photographs. The man in this picture wears a kente that was part of a recent exhibition at the Amba Gallery in Accra. The background colours borrow the joy of that robe. On his Instagram feed, Boateng comments that: “This smile makes life more beautiful. Glad to share this smile with the world.”

Boateng first used his Instagram account for pictures of himself modelling the traditional and vintage clothing he loved. He realised, however, that people were liking and following him more for his photography than his modelling. He takes his inspiration from the streets and market places outside his door in Accra, and then uses friends to bring his ideas to life. The collaborative process is important, he argues, because western photographers have long come to African cities and taken pictures without the consent of the people in them. News outlets often depicted Ghana and Africa in a negative way, he said in a recent interview with the Homecoming Gallery, and failed to “shine a light on the energy, power, immense creativity and pride that’s also embedded in our culture”.

Boateng sees his pictures – on display with Homecoming gallery at the Photo London fair this week – as part of a creative explosion of Ghanaian culture that includes musicians such as Kelvyn Boy and B4bonah, and diaspora fashion leaders such as Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief of British Vogue, and the late Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton. “There’s a feeling of opportunity in Accra,” he suggests, “like we’re a new hotbed of creativity – like Paris in the 1920s.”

• Photo London 2023 is at Somerset House, London, WC2 from Wednesday 10 to Sunday 14 May