Life Between the Poles

This episode is about my long time friend Toru who came to America as a 17 year old exchange student from Japan.   Now a naturalized US citizen he tells us his long road of getting a college degree and starting his life as a photojournalist then later as a Scottsdale firefighter.   He talks about his selfless life of giving 20 years to the Big Brother Big Sister program.  He's now retired but is still involved with volunteer non-profit programs where he still pursue's his photography and other interests with his wife and dog's.

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Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

My family has known Maria for 30 years.  I recently did a few portraits of her when I thought what can I do with these other than post them on Instagram and Facebook.  For a long time I have been watching and listening to Platon a world famous photographer who talks from the heart with deep interest to his sisters he's photographing.  For me, Platon is incredibly motivating.  Since, I have a photojournalism background I decided to interview Maria.  She is a selfless person with a deep personal life story of perseverance , struggle and grace.  I think you'll find this a deeply emotional interview.  It's not meant to be political statement rather a life story of an incredible woman. 

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Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

Starting off at the gym with new observations of absolute astonishment.  There's always new observations of interest you may find surprising and entertaining.  I then move onto the purpose of the Podcast with my observation of recent trends in photography that demonstrate in my opinion laziness in the name of breaking away from norms of 20th century craftsmanship.  Intended to be fresh and new but actually old and done before.  There are very few today that are successful in using direct flash in a creative way but not so much as a gimmick but as creative license they've perfected.  This direct flash technique has been used for over 35 years that I know of, but now curator's find it cutting edge from emerging photographers. For me, it's distracting that diminishes the viewers viewpoint when looking at the image quality from a social documentary sense.   It's a technique that exaggerates the reality of a scene, by intruding, bruising and dramatizes real or not so real feeling, sometimes mood and definitely reality.  When I see the blast flash technique I see the shadow's first then the subject in front of the camera.  In my opinion that's gravely wrong. Focus should always be one the human condition and not an over dramatic surreal flavor of the month shadow on a wall.  I know, I may be attacked with disagreements on this but study documentary or social documentary work of the profession and then tell me I'm full of shit.  

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Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

I've made some changes at the gym that has made my life a little calmer and more tolerant of the humanity that occupies the building.  Then I'm off to Yuma, Arizona for Yuma Days and the PRCA Rodeo.  Great fun seeing all the participant but I did learn a few things about photography at a PRCA event.  The crescendo of this episode was at the Costco food court which in mind was turned into preschool for a toddler.  This event fits the theme of Life Between the Poles perfectly. 

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

Once again this episode deals with the incredibly rude people I observe and experience at the gym I go to.  It is absolutely mind boggling to me how some people go thru life never considering how their behavior effects other people.

Since this is partially about photography I also speak about a print share event I went to last week.  This event is sponsored by the Arizona Photography Alliance where members share and talk about photographs they have collected over the years from other artist.  

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

In this episode I get us caught up on the escapades that occur at my neighborhood gym.   I talk about a weather event called a micro-burst that hit our area a few weeks ago.  Since this is a podcast about photography, I'm also talking about various topics of how the professional photography business has change.  I talk about my personal darkroom work making 8X10 silver gelatin collector contact prints.  I created two video's illustrating how these prints are made.  I am remiss I didn't mention this in the podcast but I will be posting these video's on my YouTube channel soon.

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

This podcast starts with the fan favorite, a report about my observations at the gym.  I then go onto the story of the massive Phoenix, Arizona dust storm that occurred August 25, 2025.  To conclude my podcast I talk about photography and printing.

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

I talk about the newspaper photo assignment photographing Liberty Wildlifes releasing a rehabbed Golden Eagle back into the wild.  While driving on a primitive road looking for the wild life group I mistakenly drove into a camp of heavily armed people shooting guns and firing bowling balls hundreds of feet into the air.  This is the story and the life of a community photojournalist on a rare and humorous day.

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

In this episode I introduce my friends and listeners to my new blog bradarmstrong.blog.   I talk briefly about how Instagram has turned into a mini TikTok.  It's video and advertising.  There still is good photography on Instagram but I don't find engagement other than seeing empty emoji's.  I guess it's a conformation that people are seeing your work but it seems to fall intellectually short.  With the blog I can write the stories behind the photograph's.  It hopefully entices folks to read plus see the photographs.  Facebook and Instagram don't support long reads.  People don't have time for it and want to scroll quickly.  The blog is different.  At least it is for me.   

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360 

We drove over to Santa Monica from Phoenix for a few reasons.  One to have our wedding blessed by a Catholic Priest which created quite a bit of anxiety on my part with the usual response of "No" I'm not doing that.  But, I always give in and in the end I'm grateful I did.  We also had the celebration of life for my brother-in-law Barry which was truly fantastic and special. Also, I wanted to try my hand at pseudo street photography photographing people with a point and shoot camera at Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier.  

Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for listening and help me grow this channel.  Have a great day.  Many of the photographs I talk about here are on Facebook: Brad Armstrong the Avatar picture is my wife and I with Smokey the Bear,  Instagram @ shade_image / commercial and editorial portraits Instagram @ barmst360