Biographical Notes
Me, Jeffrey Wong, on my birthday (Feb7,'98) in the Paria Wilderness Area. The camera next to me: a Bender 4x5 kit camera. Photographed by a total stranger using my Olympus Epic point/shoot with fuji super G+ 200 print film.
About Photography: What great fun! Growing up, I dabbled in photography, and knew a little about good equipment and good film, but couldn't commit myself to buying it. I bought my first professional quality camera, an Olympus OM-1 35mm SLR, in 1977--still I couldn't commit myself to learning how to use it. I used the Olympus for years without really understanding film, light meters and lenses. Many images never made it properly to film. In June 1996, as my daughters played soccer, I picked up a camera and shot more bad photographs. I read books and magazines, learning about light, film, lenses and cameras. I looked at other photographs.
The Great Outdoors. I have always enjoyed walking and camping the deserts and mountain forests of the Southwest. I photographed because it helps me remember the good parts of a hike--I seem not to remember the blisters and mosquito bites much at all.
Great Accomplishments. I haven't published--well, actually, the World Bank has just pasted The Spectrum on the cover of a new book entitled The Political Economics of Democratic Decentralization, one that Mark Twain would have described as "...chloroform in print." I have bartered images for dental work with my dentist. These pictures, mostly desert landscapes, led me to call this my Sons of the Desert Portfolio (a Laurel and Hardy movie title). I live and work in Las Vegas, Nevada.
How do I do what I do?
And how do you do? I photograph with more than one type of camera, including:
- A 35mm Canon Elan IIe single lens reflex. 35mm is the filmsize sold everywhere but I buy Fuji Velvia, a professional film, from a photographic specialty store and keep it in my freezer until just before use. I like Velvia as do many other landscape and wildlife photographers. 35mm for fun, art and excellent blowups to 8x12 and larger with the right equipment.
- square medium format, using a Mamiya C220 twin lens reflex, which produces a 5.6cm X 5.6cm negatives or transparencies (bigger fun and superb photographs up to 20x20 and occasionally to 24x24) and
- Large format view camera--using a Bender 4x5 monorail kit camera (picture above)
you may have seen this kind of camera in pictures of old timers who have their heads tucked under a cloth behind the camera. Things haven't changed much in that regard. This of course leads to Very serious fun with possibilities of enlargements to as much as 30x40, because it produces a large twenty square inch original. This film costs a bit more to shoot, about $5 per frame, but it produces a negative or slide about 15 times larger than my Canon Elan IIe.
(For more information on this wonderful and inexpensive but real large format camera, visit the Bender Photographic website.) If you decide you need to buy a Bender camera you need to heed my building hints.
- A huge Bender 8x10 kit camera which I have yet to use much. I can proudly say I built it myself. :^)
My Computer system.. I have a generic (Techmedia Pentium 166) with 48 MB RAM, a KDS 19" Trinitron monitor. I scanned 35mm images using the original Hewlett-Packard Photosmart scanner, others from prints using an HP Scanjet IIc or from trannies using a Microtek Scanmaker 4 with transparency adapter.
Books and Magazines
Books. You will find all at BarnesandNoble.com, your library or Amazon.com. Clicking on the titles below will take you to descriptions of the books and an opportunity to acquire them:
 Ansel Adams Guide: Basic Techniques of Photography by John Paul Schaefer
 Learning to see creatively
by Bryan Peterson
 The Camera by Ansel Adams, $17.56
 Using the View Camera by Steve Simmons, a good basic book that will do better than get you started for about $18
 Stroebel's View Camera Basics by Leslie Stroebel for about $27
 View Camera Technique by Leslie Stroebel pricey at $47.00 and maybe far too technical and complete
The Photographer's Guide to Using Filters, by Joseph Meehan, $18-20
 Southwestern & Texas Wildflowers
, a Peterson Field Guide by Theodore F. Niehaus. It'll help you identify the wildflowers that you'll come across.
 The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating an HTML 4 Web Page
by Paul McFedries for about $20 gets you a book that will enable you to write a webpage like this one in the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) style.
DON'T buy Javascript for Dummies, as it won't help you understand anything--pure waste of $. DON'T buy Designing a Photograph--it may bore you to death and you'll miss the three rolls of Velvia that you could have bought with that money.
 Adobe PhotoShop 5.0 for Photographers
 PhotoShop 5 for Windows Bible
 The Complete Idiot's Guide to Adobe PhotoShop 5
Magazines. To subscribe to Outdoor Photographer for only $10.98 per ten-issue year ($40 at the newsstand and $20 by normal subscription click BarnesandNoble.com Then click on the Magazines tab then on the word "hobbies" and then on "Outdoor Photographer." Also, PC Photo $12/eight-issue year or better yet, $22 for 2 years from PC Photo.
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Guide BooksThe following books will guide you into places that will wow you into Velvia heaven:
 Sierra North
 Sierra South
 Hiking and Exploring the Paria River by Michael R. Kelsey
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My Favorite Coffee Table Books:
Stone & Silence, by Linda Waidhofer in  (hardcover) or  (softcover), an exceptional book which I have bought for friends.
 Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau
by Jack Dykinga
 David Muench's Arizona: Cherish the Land, Walk in Beauty
 Plateau Light
also by David Muench
 Utah Photos of David Muench
NOTE: I may get a small amount of $ when you use a link on this page to buy books from Barnes and Noble. You won't pay any more than you would compared to going to Barnes and Noble any other way. If you have a Discover card you'll save more $ by going to www.Discovercard.com.
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©1998 Jeffrey Wong.
About Copyrights
I found the following on somebody else's website,
"©1998 John Doe all rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means -- electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise -- without the written permission of the copyright owner. Any efforts of copyright infringement will be regarded by Mr. John Doe as a welcome new source of income, vigorously pursued by legal counsel. "
What a bunch of self righteous, arrogant hooey! I like to share my vision, so you may use my images in your webpages or on your computer "desktop" wallpaper, but please just remember to give me credit and mention my name with my web address liberally. If you use my images to advertise or make money, you really should contact me for my permission and to pay for such use. Your conscience will thank you.