Dean Traver will release a book of his photography entitled “Life As I See It” this fall. A book signing and author event is being held Saturday, Sept. 27, at 6:30 p.m. at Abbe Creek Gallery.
Traver has been working on this book for about a year, working with Bob Campagna to outline the book.
“I just thought it was a great way to get people to look at some of the 1,000s of pictures I’ve taken in my lifetime around a certain theme,” Traver said.
Traver said he got his start in photography back when he was in sixth grade. At the time he was living at home, his family had a film development room in their house that he would dabble in for art, developing his own black and white film rolls.
“After I left for school, my family sold that house, and with it that photography developing room,” Traver siad.
At that point, though, Traver was hooked on the hobby, moving to a 127 camera and then to a 35 millimeter film camera, which he used up until the 2000s.
“I bought my first digital camera in the early 2000s,” Traver said. “And that’s when I seriously got more into editing my photos after the fact.”
Traver said the biggest change from film to digital was not being limited to how many photos you could squeeze out of a roll.
“It’s not hard to find myself now taking 200 photos in a session,” Traver said. “Whereas in the past, with film rolls, that would have been spending upwards of 10 rolls of film for one event.”
When Traver started the work on the local public access cable channel, he slowed down a little in his photography, but got back to doing more shows of his professional work in 2013.
His work is featured in six different galleries now in the Midwest, including a gallery in McGregor, a gallery in Burlington, DKW in Marion, First Brick Gallery and Abbe Creek Gallery in Mount Vernon.
He’s also entered the Iowa State Fair photo competitions a number of years over the past 15 years, having a photograph place 12 of the past 15 years as high as third place.
Traver said he doesn’t do a lot of studio photography, that his photos of people are candids or portraits caught in nature. He prefers landscapes and still life, but will shoot just about anything.
Traver said that the book will be available at all the galleries he has his artwork at who want it.
“What I’ve really loved about photography is getting a photo to look exactly like what I saw it look like when I was shooting the shot,” Traver said. “It’s hard to describe exactly what I love about certain photos, just that it happens. I love driving somewhere and finding something that catches my eye and trying to capture it and then editing so people can see what I was seeing.”
Traver said he loved traveling and getting photographs from other locations as well.
“Life As I See It” will be available at Abbe Creek Gallery, as well as some of the other galleries that house Traver’s works in the area.