Sharp Todd lives up to his name.
While it might sound like a stage name, especially for someone who has spent decades taking photos with incredible levels of detail, Todd was named after his grandfather, although he’s not sure where the first name Sharp came from.
“People are always confused as to which is first and which is last,” said Todd, 75, of Camas. “Whenever I introduce myself, I always say, ‘My first name is Sharp, and my last name is Todd,’ and they say, ‘Are you sure?’ ”
Todd started taking photos when he was 7 or 8 after helping his father in their basement darkroom, and regardless of where the name came from, his r?sum? shows many people think his photos are quite, well, sharp.
He entered his first international competition in 1988, and his work has since appeared in more than 3,500 competitions, earning him certification as an International Grand Master by the Photographic Society of America. At that time, he was the 17th person in the world to earn the designation.
He and his wife are active members of the society, which he said helps educate serious amateur photographers. Todd is also a member of the Film Pack Camera Club in Vancouver, which has 40 to 50 members who meet regularly to critique each other’s work and go on field trips.
Todd will have four of his large prints on display at the Gresham Art Committee’s Black and White Show, which runs Saturday through Dec. 3 in the City of Gresham Visual Arts Gallery at the Public Safety & Schools Building, 1333 N.W. Eastman Parkway, Gresham, Ore. One of the photos on display, “Leaf Pattern,” shows leaves he saw in Hawaii in various depths of field, all in intense detail. To get the image, Todd took two photos, focusing first on the closer leaves and then on the ones in back. He combined the two images on his computer and played around with the color, contrast and other settings for a few hours.
“Very few of my images come straight out of the camera,” he said. “I do post-processing on most of them.”
As an adult, Todd always tried to have a darkroom in his homes, whether living in Boise, Idaho — where he resided for 28 years while working as manager of systems development staff for Boise Cascade — or in Portland, where he grew up. He and his wife moved to Camas four years ago to be close to their three daughters and grandchildren. There’s no darkroom in their Camas home, but Todd has an office where he works on photos on the computer and prints them out to submit to competitions.
It took a while for Todd to come around to digital photography, but he remembers the exact moment when he realized it was time to make the switch. He was leading a lecture on darkroom techniques at a conference in 2007.
“Seven people showed up at a conference of 1,500 people,” Todd said. “Right after, I went out and bought a digital camera.”
While he missed working with film at first, he sees the benefit of working digitally.
“Now, on the computer using photo-editing software, I can do more things and in a shorter time,” he said. “I could take eight hours in one day to make one print before. I can make the same print in 10 to 15 minutes now, and the quality of the image is going to be just as good as it would’ve been with film. Plus, I don’t miss my hands smelling like chemistry all the time.”
Bits ‘n’ Pieces appears Fridays and Saturdays. If you have a story you’d like to share, email bits@columbian.com.
