It's Friday, which means it's time for another SmugMug Corner interview. This week we meet biotech engineer Daniel Thorp.

Name: Daniel Thorp
Website: dthorp.smugmug.com

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Daniel Thorp. I am a 40-year-old husband and father of three. I currently live in San Leandro, California, which is located directly across the bay from San Francisco. For my day job, I am a mechanical process engineer for a large biotech company. I was born and raised in San Francisco, California, by two very gifted artistic parents. My father is still showing off his skills as a musician playing gigs on his piano and my mother still creates beautiful drawings, paintings and handcrafts. For some reason none of those artistic genes were passed on to me. I failed at music, drawing/painting and every other artistic means of expression. What I did excel in was mathematics, computers and anything mechanical or electronic. I can fix anything that is put in front of me. I am just totally fascinated with “how things work”.

Stealing the Show

What is your background/training in photography?

I have taken classes here and there as a means of getting college credits or just to learn from someone more skilled than I, but I never took to heart anything I learned from those classes. I guess I never really took any photography teachings to heart because what they were teaching just wasn’t me. I am not an artist. I have always been technically minded, but the classes I took were taught in a way that artists could learn and understand. It wasn’t until I read the zone system by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer that photography made sense and showed how I could put on print what I had envisioned in my head. Ansel Adams and Fred Archer spoke my language. They were talking technical jargon that took what I assumed only artists could do into what technically minded people like myself could do. I now had the understanding and tools to make a scene look and feel the way I wanted it to do with the means of a darkroom. I spent hours and hours working in the darkroom to make my negatives as good as they could get or to make a print the way I envisioned it, which was never the way it came straight out of the camera.

St. Peter's Gate

How long has photography been a passion for you? When, where and how did it start?

I started in photography just after high school for several years, but after I married and started a family, I drifted away from it. I no longer had the room for a darkroom nor did I have the time it took to process the pictures once I took them. It wasn’t until I went on a solo retreat to Mendocino County in Northern California a couple of years ago that I once again regained the photo bug. I brought my new toy and first dSLR the Nikon D200. The beautiful and dramatic colors of Northern California’s coastline combined with the awesome power of the ocean re-sparked something inside me. Once more I was bit by the technical bug of photography simple because I wanted to show my family and close friends the dramatic scenery I witnessed and straight-out-of-the-camera shots were just not doing it for me.

With digital photography and the use of Photoshop, I once again fell in love with the technical side of putting what I saw into a print, or in this case into a digital file to be displayed on a computer screen. I no longer needed the space nor the heavy time commitment a darkroom required. Digital photography had once again allowed me to show my vision of a particular scene the way I had envisioned that particular moment.

Junk Yard Dogs

What equipment is in your camera bag? What piece of equipment will be added to the collection next?

Camera Bodies: Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Nikon D80 modified for IR only
Lenses: All Nikkor Brand: 14-24mm f/2.8G ED, 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED, 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED, 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
Tripod: Gitzo GT0541 w/ Acratech V2 Ballhead
Monopod: Gitzo GM2942 w/ MH-01 RRS Hi-Capacity Monopod Head
Flash: 2ea SB800, 2ea SBR200, and 3ea PocketWizard PLUS II for off camera flash abilities
Camera Bag: Crumpler ~ The Karachi Outpost
Next on Wish list: Nikkor 85 f/1.4D, 600mm f/4G ED VR

An Intimidating Stare

What are your favorite places/subjects to photograph? Why?

I don’t have either a favorite place or a favorite subject matter to photograph. I enjoy taking pictures pretty much anywhere of any thing. I have tried to come up with a specialty, but nothing has really kept my interest long enough to be considered a real niche.

The Stalker

Who are your biggest photographic influences? Why? What about their work influences your work?

Having Ansel Adams as a major influence may sound like a cliché but for me it is far from it. Ansel Adams allowed me to understand that what comes out of the camera is not what has to be printed. He used the darkroom as a tool just as much as he used his camera as a tool. He was a true master and innovator of darkroom techniques. For me, the transformation from the darkroom to Photoshop was fairly seamless since the creator’s Photoshop had the foresight to use the same tools and lingo as those tools we used in a darkroom. I was able to manipulate the raw images out of my camera with Photoshop in a much easier less time demanding setting than the darkroom. Photoshop combined with digital dSLR’s were the tools I needed to allow me to pursue my favorite pastime as well as allowing me to present my visions in a medium that I can share with everyone that cares to view my way of looking at the world.

Tree of Romance

How long have you been Smug with your photographs? What features do you most enjoy with your SmugMug account?

I joined SmugMug last summer on a tip I got from a heavily involved SmugMug member, April Tse. I explained to her I was going to build a site to show off my photos and I needed a place online to store my ever-increasing library of shots. SmugMug was the perfect place for me. Not only did they have the best support I have ever enjoyed to help build my site, they also have a great photo forum community of photographers ranging from novices to pros on DGrin. I thoroughly enjoy SmugMug’s vast diversity of services as well as their total commitment to their customers. They are a one-of-a-kind company and a model I wish many more businesses would follow.

The Sun Diety

If you had do sum up in 50 words or less the impact SmugMug has made on your photography/photography business, those 50 words would be...

Exposure, support and acceptance.

SmugMug’s diverse community of photographers has convinced me that diversity is the key to success in photography. Not only is it okay, but absolutely necessary to shoot and process pictures in ways as unique as how each of us sees the world around us.

Night Light

If you had to give one piece of advice to those wanting to pursue photography, what would you tell them?

Learn the basics of what your camera can and cannot do. Shoot within the means of your equipment’s abilities to achieve great shots.

Innocence