The Ashton Photographer
Photography has been a passion since I earned my first camera when I was 12, a prize for selling the most magazine subscriptions during a school fundraiser. It was a cheap plastic box camera whose shutter soon gave out, but it didn’t matter. I was hooked after I took my first photos of classmates at our end-of-school year picnic.
Later at UW-Madison I took all the photojournalism courses I could. When I was a sports editor at the Sun Prairie Star Countryman and a newspaper editor in the U. S. Air Force, I always carried a camera with me. Through the years I documented the lives of my kids and family, and built a wet darkroom in my basement. I embraced digital photography in 2000. Today I own two Nikon digital cameras, several lenses, photo editing software, an Epson scanner, and tens of thousands of my digital images stored on hard drives. |
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At heart, I’m a photojournalist and documentary photographer. I love to help people and organizations tell their business, family, and personal stories through images. I strive to see the art and beauty in everyday life and then express it in a photo through solid composition and design. Keep it simple, I say. Less is more in life, and usually in a photo. For samples of my work, check out my photo website at www.brabenderphoto.smugmug.com.
But I also love teaching photography. For over 30 years I was the photo specialist at the Wisconsin 4-H Office where I had the pleasure of working with kids and their adult leaders in the photography project. When I retired in 2008, we had over 11,500 project members and 500 photo leaders around the state.
By the way, I got the idea of calling myself The Ashton Photographer from a stranger who stopped me at a local baseball game, when our Ashton Home Talent nine was playing at Middleton. I've been taking photos of the Ashton games since 2010 and posting them on my SmugMug photo site. As I walked by the stranger with my camera that Sunday, he said, "Hey, you're the Ashton photographer." I said, "Yes, I am."
But I also love teaching photography. For over 30 years I was the photo specialist at the Wisconsin 4-H Office where I had the pleasure of working with kids and their adult leaders in the photography project. When I retired in 2008, we had over 11,500 project members and 500 photo leaders around the state.
By the way, I got the idea of calling myself The Ashton Photographer from a stranger who stopped me at a local baseball game, when our Ashton Home Talent nine was playing at Middleton. I've been taking photos of the Ashton games since 2010 and posting them on my SmugMug photo site. As I walked by the stranger with my camera that Sunday, he said, "Hey, you're the Ashton photographer." I said, "Yes, I am."