BEMIDJI — William Petersen used to lug around 45 pounds of camera equipment for his hobby as a serious yet amateur photographer. Now he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his smartphone, and creates stunning, gallery-worthy photos.
And he’s about to show others how to do the same.
Petersen, a retired medical doctor who lives on the Mississippi River east of Bemidji, will lead a demonstration on camera phone photography and editing at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24, at the Watermark Art Center. An exhibit of his work opened last week at the center and will remain on display through Dec. 28.
Petersen used an iPhone, but he said Android users also can benefit from learning how to use Snapseed, a free app that makes editing images a breeze. He said advances in smartphone camera technology have changed the game.
“It’s a very tiny camera, and what’s wonderful about it is that you always have it with you,” Petersen said. “You didn’t fail to bring it, because it’s almost like your umbilical cord. There you have this fabulous camera that continues to get better and better. Many photographs that are now in magazines or newspapers are made with the iPhone.”
Contributed / William Petersen
Petersen, who retired five years ago, fell in love with photography after getting his first camera as a gift when he was 11. It was a Kodak Duaflex box camera. He would load a roll of 12- or 24-exposure black-and-white film into the camera, take the photos, unload the film and take it to a local drug store.
“A week later you would get your negatives and tiny prints back,” Petersen said, “and you’d see what you had accomplished, or many times didn’t accomplish. But it was really informative. I learned a lot about composition. For emotional reasons, I still kind of prefer black-and-white imagery.”
Later in life, he had his own darkroom, so trips to the drugstore were no longer required.
“I loved working on black-and-white prints in the darkroom,” he said. “It was very labor intensive. I would work eight hours on maybe one or two prints, dry them and then find out that they needed to be redone. I enjoyed that whole process.”
But the digital age has changed everything.
“Then the iPhone came on the scene, and digital cameras, too,” Petersen said. “All of these companies (like Canon, Nikon and Olympus) were developing amazing cameras. They would capture 300 images, and you could look at them immediately. If you made mistakes you could correct it right away and repeat the image. So the learning curve for photography exponentially improved for people who had a serious interest.”
Contributed / William Petersen
Petersen is anxious to share what he has learned with others.
“I want to show them how good the iPhone camera is, and also show them how easy it is to use Snapseed, which is a downloadable program,” he said. “You can do almost everything that Photoshop could do 15 years ago. There are 23 different adjustments you can make in Snapseed alone.”
Attendees are urged to download the Snapseed app before coming to the Oct. 24 event, which is free with no registration required.
“It’s an extremely important tool for people who are serious photographers, not trying to make a living, but really trying to make a statement,” he added. “I think I can show an introduction to Snapseed that can get people off and going, and using this free app to really improve their images. I want to take people way beyond the notion that photography is pushing the button at the right moment in time. It’s not that at all. That’s just the beginning step. Everything else happens after that.”
Contributed / William Petersen
Contributed / William Petersen
Dennis Doeden, former publisher of the Bemidji Pioneer, is a feature reporter. He is a graduate of Metropolitan State University with a degree in Communications Management.
