“The night work I do isn’t HDR at all,” says photographer Wayne Stadler (he/him/his) to the Phoblographer in an interview. “It’s long exposure light painted subjects while the shutter is open. There is actually very little post-processing in this work.” He continues to state that it’s mostly just contrast and saturation adjustments that are made. This surprises us — as his daytime work involves HDR processing and even overcooking the images, according to him. Wayne’s work is fascinating to look at, and on pouring your eyes over the photos, it’s easy to see why.
All images by Wayne Stadler. Used with permission. Check out his website or buy his images on Etsy.
Wayne first got into photography via arts in school — where he adored using an old manual Pentax camera with black and white film. “Even back then I was trying different things, double exposing etc.,” he tells us. “The darkroom time was strange in hindsight, a complete art form of its own. Both my teachers were pushing me to go to Ryerson University in Toronto for fine arts.” But instead, Wayne tried being a rock star. In 2005, he picked photography back up again.
To get his photos, he uses a Nikon D800 with the trinity of f2.8 lenses. He hasn’t ever seen a reason to upgrade and uses tripods as well. To paint with light, he uses a variety of different lights — some of them are as simple as little LED keychain flashlight.
Wayne knows that he didn’t invest his style of photography, and so when it came to learning it, he took workshops where he learned how to create his own unique images. He took lots of notes and references them when he shoots at times.
It’s very experimental and creative when doing it because one wrong move and you’ve just wasted a 3-4 minute exposure and have to start all over again.
Wayne Stadler
Most of his work is him being alone — and he prefers time with his dog more than anything else. Sometimes he works with other people, but he typically likes photographing at his favorite spots. “I find it very calming and meditative,” he tells us. “I’m where I’m supposed to be when I’m just shooting and creating. And being as many of my subjects are abandoned, the quiet is an extra bonus, sometimes only a hum of a distant interstate. “
Of course, Wayne images can’t be recreated easily using something like AI imagery. And he told us why and how his work stands out.
My main goal in my photography work is that I try to bring one last breath back to something that has been discarded and ignored sometimes for decades. To show the remaining beauty in the history that the place or item holds. AI isn’t doing this because the subjects aren’t real. Sure it can crank out similar work, similar looking images but the human element is missing. I’ve played around with MidJourney, created stuff that looks like mine etc but I compare the whole thing to what also happens in music.
He likens this to the fact that humans are the only ones who made music for a long time. Then electronic music came out. Sure, there are still folks out there who still want real bands, and that there will always be people that search out live, real music — as he calls it. “…just as Ikea and Walmart art, website graphics, stock photography, etc will be replaced by AI there will still be people who will seek out REAL photography. I also believe that (out of necessity) just as there is AI to make the fake music/news/photos/art, there will AI to detect it,” Wayne tells us. “So those continuing to create real art and photographs will still be able to be found and people will get tired of everything being fake and search them out.”