Michael Nichols

My artistic goal has always been to craft images that I feel have interesting composition, texture, and/or subject matter.  While much of my photographic effort is before taking the shot with planning timing for light management, then trading off point of view, focal length, exposure, and raw composition, I also spend significant time per image on refining composition, adjusting exposure, and applying other digital darkroom techniques including tone mapping.  I shoot a 2:3 aspect ratio camera, so that drives most of my image sizing as I print what I liked in the viewfinder.  

B&W Textures

My first love was B&W for revealing texture.

Oceans, Lakes, and Rivers/Waterfalls

I am always drawn to water in motion be it seascapes, rivers, or waterfalls.

Portraits of Things

I also like to make images of non-people subjects in the style of a portrait. 

Sepia Memories

A departure from my 2:3 work is my “Memories” series of sepia toned images in a 1:1 square format of “vacation” shots.

PRINTS FOR SALE

My images in 2:3 aspect ratio are available for purchase in 6×9 and 12×18 unframed, unmatted prints. For more information, contact me at [email protected].

BACKGROUND

My early photographic education was reading books on photography and studying collections of photographs to understand why I was drawn to what I was drawn to. I took classes at the former Essex Photographic Studio where I fell in love with B&W and processing my own film and prints then setting up numerous darkrooms as I moved around. It was not surprising that when I wed my wife, Sharon, we each brought a photographic enlarger to the new household. Sharon and I then continued our photographic education with classes at New England School of Photography (NESOP) and frequent seminars by the Professional Photographers of Massachusetts (PPAM).  Sharon and I started Shari Nichols Photography, a home-based portraiture studio, where we soon migrated from film to the emerging digital photography era. I still miss the sound of that old Hasselblad, but I was instantly hooked on digital image capture and Photoshop for post-capture digital darkroom manipulation.  The portraiture studio support honed my lighting and Photograph skills, which has informed my outdoor shoots as well as studio lighting shots and macro-photography.  My current intent is to move from strict photographs to digital imagery combining elements from many digital images to create a new original art works. I have been a LAG Member for 10 years, was Treasurer for four years, and have been Webmaster for five years.