Chris Klus Photo Bio
Chris Klus—Photography Bio
I first became interested in photography in the 80’s while living in Hamilton, Ontario. After shooting for a couple of years I decided to become serious about my photography and took courses in basic photography, darkroom, lighting and composition taught by professional photographers in the area.
With their encouragement, I started taking portrait engagements and bought myself an old Pentax twin lens medium format with my first paycheque. I found the larger format opened my eyes to seeing new images and, shooting with slow film (as slow as ASA 64), I had to become more patient and more thoughtful in my picture taking.
I was hired by a studio and spent two years shooting weddings. We used Hasselblads and had a list of stock shots. Though the work was hard and the hours long, I learned more in that job than in all the courses I took. The highlight of my early career was landing a 2-year contract with an up-scale hair salon in Hamilton to shoot their advertising copy. We hired young students from a modelling school and had shoots every 3 months to make up the ads that were printed in the local paper.
Shortly afterwards, I got a promotion at my day job and my family and I packed up and moved to Ottawa. My photography fell to the wayside as I became busy with my new job and my growing family. I slowly sold off all my camera and darkroom equipment — keeping only a 35 SLR and some lenses — and did very little “real” shooting other than family snaps.
In 2000, I bought my first digital camera—a compact point-and-shoot—and played around a lot with the manual controls. As I started shooting with it, I realized how much I missed serious photography. This led me to buy a Nikon D-70 digital SLR and learning to use Adobe PhotoShop and to this second phase in my photography career.
In 2007 I retired from my consulting practice and decided to become serious about my photography. I up-graded to a Nikon D200 and bought a suite of lenses—Nikon 70-300 VR, Sigma 10-20 and a Sigma 150-500 OS. I submitted photos to various stock photo sites and was accepted by IStock, Dreamstime, Fotolia and PhotographyOttawa and almost immediately started selling photos. In September 2007 I attended the Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant photo workshop in Shampers Bluff, New Brunswick. Freeman and Andre opened my eyes to a whole new world of photography—image making rather than picture taking. Freeman taught me how to apply visual design principles to photography and Andre taught me a host of photo editing techniques. I also took a workshop with an Ottawa photographer, William “Willie” McElligott, who helped me fine tune my creative process.
I now shoot principally with a Nikon D300 and a Nikon 18-200 VR lens. Though I spend a lot of time doing nature and travel photography, I also take fine art prints. I love images that burst with colour and mood. I look for photos that are visually stunning and dramatic. I hope you take some time to view my images in the Portfolio section and I hope you enjoy them. I’d love hear your reactions and comments which you can post for me to read in the Blog section of the site.
