About My Work and 30+ Year Photography Career

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I started in photography  in 1990, before the advent of the digital camera.  My first tools were a simple Nikon FM2 camera, film and my darkroom.  Back then, there were no "Delete" buttons, or Gigabyte storage for hundreds of "throw away" shots.  You had ONE CHANCE to get the shot......right.  Or the moment was gone forever.  In those days, you HAD to know your techniques........or you weren't going to make it.

I'm self-taught, along with a few specific college photography courses and numerous professional workshops, several taught by National Geographic photographers.  I loved photo-stories and particularly National Geographic photo stories since I first picked up one of their magazines.

You see, for me, photography was ALWAYS about telling a story.....even for my Commercial photography in the 90's, weddings, family portraits, bands, models and more.  Even my street photography was about the story I saw in the shot.  And certainly the photo book projects were ALL photo stories.

And stories involve feelings, of some sort.  That's what you have to capture....the feelings, the emotion, the story.  A famous National Geographic photographer (David Alan Harvey) who I studied with, had a great saying that I lived by every time I picked up my camera to shoot a job or project......"don't shoot what you see, shoot what you feel".

In the 1990's, I did a lot of street shooting while I traveled ALL over the country for my "day job".  In 20+ years of environmental engineering I worked in 34 different States and a couple of foreign countries.  Then I started my photography business, Lakatos Photography.

My commercial business lasted until 2010 or so, when I started to shoot Photo Book Projects. It started with the Italian Market photo book project.  Next was the series of Cultural Fabric of Philadelphia photo book projects........nine years, three photo books, for 16 different immigrant communities in Philadelphia.  

So today I'm retired, but of course still shooting when I can.  I'm still always seeing the story in people, places and things.

Please see my photo Galleries.  There's two photo galleries, as described below:

I've now completed FOUR photo books, the Italian Market photo book (Gallery 2) and then the THREE Cultural Fabric of Philadelphia photo books (Galleries 3, 4, and 5).  There is a SEPARATE photo gallery button  (click top of page) for each of the photo books.