About Me
Gary R. Olejniczak
Gary R. Olejniczak specializes in Landscape and Avian photography. With more than 20 years of experience, he creates images that realize his personal vision of the subject. Gary’s process aims to produce a representation of how he envisions a scene at the time of capture, rather than a reflection of a scene’s actuality.
Gary’s approach to photography is simple: in the field, he collects as much digital data as possible; in his lab, these data become raw materials molded through diverse techniques to actualize his perception of the scene. In some cases, only one shot is needed to capture these data; other times, several variations of the scene are captured to produce a composite that reflects this vision.
Artist Statement
I strive to evoke an emotion through images, and to make an emotional connection with each composition. When I find a subject I am drawn to, I closely define what I am actively seeing. When I press the shutter, I capture a moment that will live forever – that moment must reflect the details, feelings, and emotions that drew me to the scene. Once I identify my subject matter, I incorporate my sense of vision, aesthetic approach, and technical execution, to establish a vision plan.
This plan is a scaffold upon which I develop and produce work that challenges the scene visually, emotionally, and technically. I seek out all the elements connected to my subject, identifying whether each of them enhances or detracts. I review other details of the scene, the overall grandeur of the subject, the time of day, the type of light present, and the emotions I feel. Only after these elements are considered, I create the composition. I constantly arrange the colors, shapes, lines, and lighting to show the subject to its best advantage. In short, I first see the whole, and then extract individual parts to create an image.
I view the total photographic experience as a three-stage process: image capture, post-capture processing, and image printing.
The first stage occurs in the field, where I capture as much data as possible about the composition I plan to create. I record these data using a Canon 5D Mark III DSLR camera, with L-Series Canon lenses covering wide-angle, midrange, and telephoto focal lengths to maximize creative options.
In the second stage, post-processing the digitally captured field data, the camera sensor’s data are processed to realize the vision I experienced in the field. In this stage, I employ several tools including Lightroom CC 2019, Photoshop CC 2019, and a variety of techniques to bring my visions to life.
The third and final stage is making the fine art print. I print images using an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 printer. I use Epson UltraChrome K3 archival inks, and Epson’s Signature Worthy and Legacy fine art papers are my choices for all prints. The specific paper I use is chosen for the individual print and all are of museum archival quality.
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