Meet John Freeman | Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with John Freeman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi John, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
My entry into the business aspect of Fine Art Wall Mural Photography actually came later in life in 2011 at age 60. I had always loved landscape nature photography since my early years starting in 8th grade when my parents gave me a camera for Christmas. In 2011, I began to experiment with Gigapixel Photography and realized that it would truly be a niche market place creating Ultra High Resolution photos for wall murals. Up to this point in life photography had always been a hobby taking back burner to my career as an Electronics Engineer. By combining my love for photography with my engineering skills I applied my expertise towards creating my trademark Ultra High Resolution Wall Mural Photos. I retired in 2016 to have time to pursue my photography full time. Now some 13 years later, my wall mural photos are amongst the highest resolution images in the landscape photography realm.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Refined over 14 years of practice and experimentation, I have perfected every step of the gigapixel photo creation process. Many of my first efforts were met with frustration and 100’s of unusable photos.

These gigapixel photos are made up of anywhere from 30 to 600 or more individual images from the camera. that get stitched together for form the completed image. I quickly discovered that all the details of making sure exposure, focus, composition are all perfect for a single image were multiplied by the fact that now I had to have 30-600 images all of which have to be absolutely perfect. With much practice, after many failed early attempts I have refined the knowledge and techniques needed to be able to produce multi-gigapixel images that capture God’s handiwork in a way that is worthy of Him.

These days I have perfected the ability to capture Focus Stacked images that can involve over 9,000 – 10,000+ focus bracketed images yielding finished images up to 10 Gigapixels and larger. Focus stacking is a technique of taking a series of 10 to 50 photos focused in steps from near to far that get combined using computer software to produce a single photo that is perfectly focused from 3 feet in front of the camera to infinity. It may take 300 or more of these focus bracketed sets to create a 10 Gigapixel image.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
As my photo galley will testify, Southwestern Colorado around the cities of Ouray, Ridgway and Telluride is one of my favorite parts of Colorado. The town of Ouray with its hot springs is a great location to base out of for many activities such as high country Jeeping, sightseeing and photography. World famous for the great fall colors my wife and I have made numerous fall trips to this area. My wife’s favorite restaurant is the Thai Chili Ouray at 740 Main St. Ouray, CO.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
When I first broke into gigapixel photography in 2011 it was a brand new budding technology within the world of photography. One of the early pioneers in this style of photography was Arron Priest from Maine. He had numerous online articles about the topic on his webpage which I studied in detail. I ended up contacting him to discuss the methods an techniques behind this type of photography. We ended up becoming friends and have done photo shoots together.

These days Arron and I are both photographers on VASTphotos.com, a online photo gallery founded by Dan Piech. This online gallery features a carefully curated group of 36 of the best photographers in the world who have mastered the VAST process for creating exceptionally high resolution photos. As world-renowned thought leaders, innovators, computer scientists, lecturers, technologists, and award winners, their work is advancing the cutting-edge of image-making techniques.

Website: https://abbascreationsphotography.com/

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-freeman/11/298/a6a/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Abbas-Creations-Photography/100088375519649/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnfreeman3738

Other: https://vastphotos.com/artist/john-freeman