| An
Introduction
by George Mann
username (George
Mann)
Nikonian
in Thailand
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a friend about this article
|
Introduction
Since
this is the first series that I am writing for Nikonians,
I better introduce myself. I was born in Oldenburg, Germany
in 1948 and immigrated to the United States at age 8, most
of my childhood was spent in the idyllic surroundings of Tuxedo
Park, New York. My first camera was a double lens Ricohflex,
which I received for my tenth birthday. I spent many happy
hours with this camera and even photographed John F. Kennedy’s
funeral in Washington DC with it (unfortunately the film was
lost some years later).
-
| In
1965 on my 17th birthday I bought my first Nikon, a Nikkorex
F with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. Two years later I acquired my
second Nikon, a Nikon F with Nikon’s first zoom lens,
the 85-250mm f/4-4.5. Everywhere I went in those days
I would get strange looks from people and remarks about
carrying a rocket launcher around with me. Over the years
I have owned so many different Nikon camera and lens models
that I lost count a long time ago. I wish I still had
all of them, I could open a small museum. |
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I
did receive some formal photography training at Brooks Institute
of Photography in Santa Barbara, California but a friend who
I had studied with at Brooks, convinced me to leave school
early, move to Los Angeles and work as a studio assistant
to various big name photographers of that time. It was a very
interesting apprenticeship period that included stints at
Playboy Studios as a lighting assistant and lingerie adjuster,
running around the country photographing rock stars for album
covers, working on major corporation’s annual reports, and
generally living the kind of life that makes people want to
move to California.
At
a certain point I felt that I needed international experience,
packed up some very large equipment cases and headed for Asia
(you can only go so far west before you run out of America).
I traveled through the entire Asian continent on that first
trip but eventually settled in Bangkok, where I became one
of the top fashion and advertising photographers in very short
time.
While
working on a book project on South East Asian refugees for
the United Nations in June of 1980, I was captured by Vietnamese
forces inside Cambodia and taken prisoner. It was then that
I found another use for my Nikon cameras, as a pillow to keep
my head above water while sleeping in a flooded jungle. Yes
it ruined all the camera gear (NPS later salvaged some of
it) but it kept me from drowning in my sleep.
For
several years, after I was released by the Vietnamese, I went
to work for ABC Entertainment, photographing TV shows such
as Three’s Company, Benson, Family Feud, American Bandstand,
and numerous Comedy Specials, but shooting celebrities in
Los Angeles was no match for the excitement of South East
Asia, so I was soon back freelancing in the Philippines, Japan,
Hong Kong, Singapore and my favorite country Thailand.
The
next stage of my life started when Apple brought out the Macintosh
computer line. I had opened a small advertising production
company in Bangkok and was looking for a way to produce my
own typesetting. On a flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok I read
a Time magazine article about laser printers and started searching
for a way to use one of these devices with a personal computer
to layout pages and set type. To make a long story short,
within a few months I was an Apple dealer and within a year
I was taking delivery of a Linotronic laser typesetting machine,
I was one of the first people on planet Earth to join a Macintosh
computer to a US $100,000 laser printer.
This
turn of events changed my life dramatically but I still maintained
a commercial photo studio, while at the same time operating
the computer graphics services business. During those years
I had the privilege of working on a number of book projects
on tribal groups in South East Asia and Nepal, and was my
own best client for annual report and commercial photography.
Early
on in the desktop publishing revolution I was offered a weekly
column by the Bangkok Post (one of the most widely read English
language newspapers in Asia) and have for most of the last
twenty years written columns on desktop publishing, multimedia
and digital photography.
Like
most computer based entrepreneurs I have spent the last ten
years working on internet projects and have either worked
as a project consultant or produced websites for advertising
agencies, tourism promotion, real estate, resort hotels, various
other businesses, and my own personal satisfaction.
| Until
recently I was working out of Calais, Maine as a freelance
writer and photographer for various magazines and websites.
My main personal website at this time is dpmac.com,
which deals with Digital Photography and Macintosh computers.
Another projects I am working on is a Nikon Digital Photography
Workflow eBook project that will be published in cooperation
with Nikonians.org and will over time develop into a seminar
series in both the US and South East Asia. |
|
Excerpts
from the Nikon Digital Photography Workflow eBook will be
published here on the Nikonians website in the George Mann’s
Digital Photography Workflow series of articles.
Currently
in Thailand and writing the Adobe
Digital Photography Workflow series.
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