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Pen Photography - Introduction

By Terry Clark

May 14, 2003

"Through this column I hope to pass along useful information to help make your pen photos better"

Photograph © 2003 Terry Clark

Photograph © 2003 Terry Clark

I’m very honored and humbled that the great folks at Pentrace have invited me to write a column about pen photography for their site. It’s not often you are allowed to combine both vocation and avocation as this opportunity provides.

While I’ve been a working professional photographer all my adult life, I’m a relative newcomer to this hobby. Three years ago a dear friend saw me struggling to writing a letter with a dip pen and asked, in the most polite way possible, if I had completely lost my mind. When I explained I was only trying to slow down from the warp speed world of digital imaging and computers he chuckled and asked why I wasn’t using a fountain pen. “What’s that?” I answered in total puzzlement having grown up in a world full of Bic sticks. The next day he gave me my first pen, an Inoxchrome.

That one pen was all it took to set the fires of collecting ablaze. For the next year I bought anything and eveything with a point. At end of the first year I realized I had made the equivalent of one pen purchase per day. Thanks to a number of wonderful and helpful people like Jim Gaston, David Iaacson, Roger Cromwell, Joel Hamilton and Michael Fultz I was finally able to understand the foolishness of trying to collect EVERYTHING. Thankfully I found my true love in the Waterman 52 series and pens with flexible or unique nibs. It’s good to be focused, even just a little!

 

A gold fountain pen photographed on brown cloth

Photograph © 2003 Terry Clark

Through this column I hope to pass along useful information to help make your pen photos better whether for record keeping, on-line auctions or beauty shots worthy of framing and displaying in your home. While we will deal mostly with direct digital photography the basic principals are exactly the same if you’re using film.

A red and black fountain pen on dark stones

Photograph © 2003 Terry Clark

If you have questions or suggestions for topics you’d like to see covered I would love to hear from you. You can contact me at: terryclark.photo@verizon.net

Terry Clark has been a professional photographer for more than 25 years. He specializes in location and studio digital photography for commercial, advertising and editorial clients worldwide. He is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and represented in NYC by Black Star Corporate. He can be contacted at: terryclark.photo@verizon.net.

 

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