Hi there! My name is Ed Vatza and I live near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Aside from a brief stint teaching psychology at a small liberal arts college in Georgia, I’ve lived here my whole life. I am married (going on 40 years) and have two children – my daughter, the artist and my son, the philosopher. I also have a son-in-law who is an absolute whiz on anything computer related. My son-in-law and daughter got this website up and running in just a few hours while I pretty much stood by in awe. Amazing what they can do!
I am still employed in the area of marketing (health care marketing now after spending years in ad agencies). The transition from Psychology to Marketing was made shortly after leaving academia. While I still enjoy what I do, I have to admit that I am starting to look forward to retirement. I not sure when I will retire but, as I am approaching 61 years of age, I do know it is getting closer every day.
My goal is simple. As I look forward to winding down my career in marketing over the next couple of years, I also look forward to ratcheting up my photography business. To that end, I hope to have an e-commerce component to this website up and running no later than the Spring of 2010 and to be doing selected art shows around the northeast and mid-Atlantic not too long after that. The business plan is in place and I have been meeting all the interim goals.
I have been interested in nature and outdoor activities for quite a while having gone through periods as a fly fisherman, hiker and now nature photographer. I just took up photography about four years ago and it has become my passion. As you would expect, I focus on nature photography – flowers, landscapes, birds, and wildlife. In the past year or so I have found my interests evolving into digital art and abstract imagery… what many refer to as fine art photography. But I still enjoy making good, classic bird and/or flower images when the opportunity presents.
My wife, an avid birder and nature lover, almost always accompanies me on photography trips around Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We particularly enjoy working the Jersey shore especially during the off-season (late-October through April) in search of wintering birds to photograph as well as wonderful sunrises, seascapes and such.
We also enjoy annual vacations to Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park in Maine (my favorite place in the whole USA) and occasional visits to Monterey and the Central California Coast.
Hope you enjoy my website, my blog and, above all, hope you enjoy nature. If you like what you see here, bookmark it, link to it, blogroll it or whatever it is that you do but come back often. I will be updating the site regularly and adding new images.
My Philosophy of Life Applied to My Photography
1) I take my photography very seriously.
2) I don’t take anything so seriously that I can’t laugh, joke and have fun.
3) Learning is a lifetime process. When we stop learning, we stop living.
My Camera Bag(s)
Bodies - Canon 5D Mark II; Canon 50D; Canon 30D; Canon Rebel XT converted for Infrared by LifePixel.
Canon Lenses - 24-70mm f/2.8L; 70-200mm f/2.8L IS; 50mm f/1.8; 300mm f/2.8L IS
Sigma Lenses - 10-20mm f/4-5.6; 70mm f/2.8 Macro; 150mm f/2.8 Macro
Lensbaby Composer – Macro kit; Fisheye optic; Soft Focus Optic
Filters – B+W Kasemann Circular Polarizing Filter; Lee 3-stop soft Graduated Neutral Density Filter; Singh-Ray Vari-ND Filter; Canon 500D Close-up Filter/Lens
Flashes - Canon 580 EX II; Canon 430 EX
Accessories - Kenko 1.4x teleconverter (TC), Sigma 1.4x TC and Canon 2.0x TC; Kenko tubes and stuff too numerous to mention
Processing - iMac; Lightroom 2.0; Photoshop CS4; Nik Complete (Dfine 2.0; Viveza 2.0; Color Efex Pro 3.0 Complete; Silver Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro 3.0) and Topaz Suite (Adjust 4; Detail 2; Simplify 2; Clean 2; DeNoise 3 and ReMask)
