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| CHARLIE BADALATI |
He worked for Eastern Airlines for four years before joining the US Navy which eventually landed him in Norfolk, Virginia where he lived for 13 years. His time in the navy introduced him to the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas where he fell for the European way of life. After the navy he worked for Honeywell Information Systems Inc. as a computer maintenance engineer. In 1980 he took advantage of an opportunity to work in Europe at a NATO cold-war bunker/command center in Maastricht, The Netherlands, he moved to Europe and worked there and later in Stuttgart, Germany for the next 29 years. He met his wife Joke (Pronounced Yoka) in The Netherlands soon after his arrival there; they have been married for 27 years. He is now drawing pensions and looking for work in Palm Coast Florida. He enjoys sailing, golf, and skiing and has had a passion for beautiful images all of his life. This passion blossomed into photography while he was living in Europe. He is a self taught photographer who has a sizable library of photographic books on subjects from exposure to Photoshop. He started winning prizes for his photography while in Stuttgart Germany. Most of his work is digital taken with Canon cameras and lenses but he uses large format 4x5 inch negative cameras and medium format negative cameras occasionally. While in Palm Coast he has won prizes locally for his work in the coastal area of St. Johns and Flagler counties. He teaches classes in all aspects of photography at the Flagler County Art League in Palm Coast’s City Market Place. He says, “When I see a scene that strikes a note in my heart I stop and look at it and try to analyze just what is it about the scene that has captured my attention. I will refine an image in my mind and try to frame the picture to include only that which is most important to what has captured my interest. I then take the picture and further develop the image that I formed in my mind at my studio” Mr. Badalati is in control of every aspect of his photography from camera to print. He develops the digital images in his studio at home and prints using an Epson Professional printer on paper that give them an estimated life span of around 200 years. His photographs are for sale upon request. "I have always had an interest in beauty. When I observe something that is perfect in form and light it strikes a note in my heart. "It seems like I have always owned a camera but in the past I only took snap-shots of things and places that I visited. Ten years ago I started to record these observations in digital image files using a 1.3 megapixel camera, today I use a 21 megapixel camera to do most of my work. Even then I began taking snap-shots of things but, over the years through reading books, searching through the internet for information about why perfect form and light affect me like they do, and luckily finding a real photographer and artist, Uka Meisner-DeRuiz, in Stuttgart to mentor me, I have learned to present an image that I find satisfying and, it seems, others agree. "I shoot digital images in the camera’s RAW format and I use Adobe Photoshop and plug-ins from various sources to develop them before I print them. "I have won many awards in the local photo contests held in Stuttgart, Germany by the US Army and also in the All-Army contests that these local contests feed. I have been commissioned to produce a series of photographs depicting sights and scenes of the German State of Baden-Württemberg for the Computer Sciences Corporation European division offices in Stuttgart, Germany. I produced fourteen 12 x 18 inch black and white museum framed images that were used to decorate the halls and conference rooms of that office. I did a series of photographs for Kimberly Einmo’s latest book on quilting, “Jelly Roll Quilts and More” that was published this year. I did the in-store pictures of the web site http://www.metacomp. de/. "I have done a reasonable business, in the past, selling prints through the Stuttgart Crafts center that allowed people to take home memories of their assignment in Germany. I retired and moved to Palm Coast in July 2009 and hope to be able to continue doing that in the St. Augustine/Flagler Beach area. "Except for the web and publishing work I print and sign all of my images in my home studio. My website www.badalati.com holds galleries of my past and present work. "Photography is a never-ending journey of discovery and skill building that gives pleasure to the practitioner and observer at the same time. Classes Charlie teaches: 1. PHOTOGRAPHY…”SoFoBoMo”
Charlie's notes on the September class: This time I am going to do something called SoFoBoMo or, Solo Foto Book Month. I will hold discussions on camera use, photographic composition and creating an image that tells the story that you mean it to tell. All of this will be surrounding a project to create a soft book consisting of one picture a day during the length of the course which is five sessions. We will meet five times on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. I will introduce the concept and discuss cameras and composition during the first session and we will critique the weekly photos that the students bring to class each week. The second to last class will deal with creating the book, using either Microsoft Word or another program that can create an Adobe Acrobat file, and the last class will be a critique of the books. I have Acrobat Pro on my computer so I can construct the books for those that do not have access to that software. I am going to try to get the books published in a section of the FCAL web page. 2. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ENHANCEMENT W/PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9 (with Bob Carlsen) |
| Click here to see SoFoBoMo book page. |
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