I noticed Dennis's images through his numerous contributions to our user's image galleries, where he has uploaded quite a few photos. I mailed him and asked him our usual set of photographer questions, and here are his replies.
How did you start photographing - and what made you choose fishing related photos in particular?
Actually, my life-long passion for fly fishing began as a young boy while accompanying my father on his fishing excursions around Colorado. It wasn't until my late teens that I also developed a keen interest in art and photography, which naturally became integrated into my sporting activities. I attended two art schools and took several photography courses at a local community college during the late 1960's, which helped fuel the fires of creative endeavor.
My working career included stints as a professional photographer and graphic designer.
Do you have a particular subject, region or a style of pictures that you mainly shoot or are you more all-round?
Today, nearly all of my photography is related to family and fly fishing activities. I have to admit that I often neglect the photography during the course of focused pursuit for my piscatorial friends, but when I do have camera in hand, anything is fair game.
Most of my angling forays take place in Colorado and Wyoming where the vast wealth of historical events that unfolded during the westward movement, and the artifacts that still remain today, provide the occasional diversion from fishing related photography. That being said, I still prefer to create photos of those magnificent fish we catch, and the smiles on the faces of those who catch them.
On the stream
Dennis Collier
Where are your photos used? Books, magazines, brochures, ads, web sites, prints, gallery exhibits or other places?
Over the years my photos have appeared in numerous advertising brochures; catalogs; magazines; public relations and documentary programs; medical education and forensic cases, and electronic media. Most recently, some of my photographs have appeared as graphic content for articles I've had published in Fly Fisherman Magazine; Southwest Fly Fishing and Northwest Fly Fishing magazines. Other exposure has included the 2011 and 2012 Umpqua Feather Merchants product catalog, and a number of fly fishing/fly tying related web sites. Some of the more artistic images reside as framed prints in private collections.
Is photography your main source of income - if at all a source of income - and do you do other jobs as a supplement?
Subsequent to retiring in 2006, I abandoned most things that could be construed as work. At the same time I began writing in earnest about fly fishing and fly tying which I consider to be more a labor of love. I do receive compensation from the published articles, but make no attempt to generate income from my photographic images per se.
Can people buy your pictures and if so, then in which form and where?
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) I do not maintain a stock photo archive, so prints are not available to the general public. However, if someone sees an image they would like to use for commercial purposes, I would be happy to negotiate "one time" usage rights with them. Otherwise, all images are protected under copyright law and should not be reproduced without written permission from me.
I would like to invite your viewers to visit my web site at www.dennis-collier.com. There is a photo gallery on the site, but I hasten to draw attention to the fact that many of the images are just fishy type snapshots taken by myself and others with no intent of being artsy at the time. There are several related articles on the site which your audience might find interesting and educational. My e-mail address is included on the web site and I welcome questions, comments, and etc. via this link.
Behind the camera
Dennis Collier
Where do you currently live and work?
For the past thirty-five years my wife, Judy, and I have resided in the small agricultural community of Longmont, Colorado - nestled along the Northern Colorado Front Range - and approximately an hour's drive north of Denver. More importantly, the geographic location offers quick and easy access to one of my favorite fly fishing venues: Rocky Mountain National Park. The "Park" is blessed with a cornucopia of angling opportunities for wild browns, brook trout, and greenback cutthroat. I spend a lot of time up there exercising the resident trout population to keep them in shape.
What's in your bag? Preferred cameras, bodies, lenses and other gear?
My current camera collection consists of a Nikon D80 DSLR; with an 18-135mm zoom lens; 55-250mm zoom lens, and 50mm macro lens. I carry polarizing and neutral density filters for all lenses, plus a heavy duty Manfrotto monopod. My vest pocket "point and shoot" camera is a Canon G-11, which is one of the few P&S cameras that take RAW images. My table top fly tying photography is done with a Nikon Coolpix 995 camera which is no longer commercially produced, but can still be found on auction web sites such as e-Bay. The Coolpix 995's have awesome macro capabilities as demonstrated by the countless images on the web site of my friend, Hans Weilenmann - www.danica.com/flytier.
Dennis himself
Dennis Collier
River life
Dennis Collier
All Fishy photographers
Croatian photographer Aleksandar Vrtaric has a slightly different photographic style compared to many other fly fishing photographers. He likes to go close and often uses very tight compositions. We asked him the same questions as we usually ask out Fishy Photographers, and Aleksandar kindly relpied.
Angus Drummond is a Colorado based guide and photographer whose images have been used in magazines and books as well as on web sites. Angus' images are also available as fine art prints. We summoned Angus as a part of our Fishy Photographers rally and asked him a few questions.
Barry Ord Clarke is an Englishman living in Norway. He is a well known photographer and writer - both in Norway and internationally. We approached Barry with our usual set of fishy photographer questions, and here are his answers.
While scouting for photographers for our series on Fishy Photographers, I bumped into Corey Kruitbosch's name a couple of times, and found his beautiful images on Flickr. Corey has almost 2,000 stunning images in his stream.
Like before I approached him with our usual set of questions and he cordially replied and sent some samples of his work.
I noticed Dennis's images through his numerous contributions to our user's image galleries, where he has uploaded quite a few photos. I mailed him and asked him our usual set of photographer questions, and here are his replies.
How did you start photography - and what made you choose fishing related photos in particular?
Finnish photographer Harri Hytönen was brought to my attention through Facebook where he inquired about our Fishy Photographers series and referred me to some of his excellent work. We hooked up and I sent off my usual set of questions. Even though most of the summer passed due to busy fishing schedules and vacations, we finally got together both a set of great pictures as well as Harri's replies, which you can all enjoy in this article.
Henry Hegeman contacted me because we had a common photography background: shooting film with Minolta gear. He turned out to be an avid fly-fishing photographer, and what was more natural than to include him in our ongoing series of fishy photographers?
I sent him the usual array of questions and he kindly replied.
When I started my series on fishy photographers I was recommended to contact Isaias, who is a professional fly-fishing photographer based in Patagonia. Isaias agreed to participate, and even though we both took our time, we finally managed to put together replies and photos for this article.
This is the first article in a new series on Fishy Photographers built over the same template as our long-running Fishy Artists series.
This premier article is about Jim Klug, known by any for his participation in the DVDs Drift and Rise and the recent Connect as well as his activities in the Yellow Dog Adventures fly fishing booking company. We have summoned Jim in his capacity as a photographer specializing in fly fishing, and presented him a row of questions.
While I was researching for the series on the recently started Fishy Photographers, I simply searched the web for fly fishing photographers, and Jim Levinson's web site popped up, showing some beautiful pictures from the US north east. I contacted Jim, and he agreed to participate and answer my questions.
How did you start photographing - and what made you choose fishing related photos in particular?
One single image from the camera of Danish Jonas Høholt has burned a lasting impression on my mind: the fantastic image of a small frog swimming over the open mouth of a rising rainbow - a Jaws goes Lilliput moment captured with great skill and drama.
Researching a bit further on Jonas I found numerous great images by him, and I of course contacted him with our usual set of fishy photographers questions.
I got in contact with Swiss Lukas Bammater through his fellow countryman and colleague Daniel Luther, who contributed an article. Lukas dropped me a mail saying "I would be happy to share some of my fishing pictures and experiences with other GFF-readers too".
I stumbled over Marcel's web site and his excellent pictures while searching and browsing for potential candidates for our Fishy Photographer series. When I started investigating a little, I realized that I already "knew" Marcel, but from somewhere completely different than fly-fishing. Marcel and his wife Meher have a thriving wedding photography business, and I had browsed both their site and their blog in connection with my non-fly-fishing photo-related web browsing. I approached Marcel and asked him our usual bunch of questions.
Mark Lance is a Colorado based photographer whose beautiful and varying images can be found on his web site River Light Images, but are also used commercially in catalogs, ads and brochures. We approached Mark to have him tell about his ventures into fly fishing photography.
I have known Michael for many years. We have been working together on the staff of a large Danish fishing magazine, and Michael is an excellent fishing writer and photographer.
Michael is a very creative person who has also written children's books and short stories and not least he's an avid rock musician who is very active in his band Wildflowers.
But this is about fishing photography, and Michael agreed to answer my usual row of Fishy Photographer questions.
Nick price is another photographer whose name popped up during my recent quest for fly-fishing photographers. A professional guide with a very keen eye for fly-fishing subjects and a really nice online portfolio - not least with some beautiful B/W images and some cool bug close-ups.
I approached Nick with our usual bunch of fishy photographers questions.
Nikola Novovic sent me a mail:
"Hello, I am from the small country Montenegro, at the Mediterranean in southern Europe. My country has become a very popular destination for fly fishing in the last few years, because we have a large number of very clear mountain rivers and lakes with only wild fish, just one hour from the sea and beaches.
Finnish photographer Pasi Visakivi dropped me an e-mail. It read:
- I'm a 42 years old fly fisherman and a freelancer photographer from the southern part of Finland. I would like to share with your my fly fishing photos.
Dutch Rudy van Duijnhoven is a well known freelance writer and photographer in the northern European fishing community delivering photos and articles to many European magazines and websites. Rudy is also very active in the fly fishing and fly tying scene and appears at shows as a fly-tyer and caster as well as a working journalist, documenting and reporting.
I asked Rudy our usual row of Fishy Photographer questions.
Soren Skarby is a Danish fly-fisher and photo journalist and a good friend of mine. He takes part in the small fishing report site where we share fishing stories and images. Oddly enough, Soren doesn't contribute many images. he actually rarely brings a camera when fishing. He does take fishing photos, but as a professional for magazines.
I asked Soren the usual row of questions and he replied as follows.
Stu Hastie is a New Zealand photographer whose work first came to my attention through his images in our user's picture galleries. When I started using Facebook I also noted Stu's image posts.
The quality was top notch, and being in NZ he didn't seem to have a shortage of subjects. I dropped Stu a message on FB, and soon he was answering our usual set of Fishy Photographer questions. Here's what he replied.
Danish angler and photographer Susanne Worm has a keen eye for great images. I asked her our usual round of fishy questions.
Beautiful!
Beautiful! Having perused Dennis' website, I see these photos are only a few detailing his artistic eye and fly tying skill. It is also rumored he is a pretty phenomenal angler, as well. Nice work!