Ocularchrome is not intended to be a commercial venture; instead, the offering of the artist’s view of life is what is being advocated.  We make this offering without preaching belief—instead, it is you the viewer that may choose to find our offering worthwhile or not.

© copyright 2000-2020 Byron Taylor. Images may not be used, reproduced or shared without written permission. All images registered with the United States Copyright Office. All rights reserved.

At age 7, I inherited my Grandfather’s Rolleiflex and this was the end of my days with the Kodak Instamatic X-15. However, my new tool brought with it responsibility as advised by my Father.  I am not certain if it was pure wisdom towards the art of the image or his financial concern on the amount of film I was now using—regardless, I was instructed to be cautious on depressing the shutter and to do so only after I was certain the image was ready to be captured. I was provided as further lesson, a story of verbal imagery, a lesson of life in the old west and a young man, provided with his first rifle. Early the next morning this young man's father sent him out to hunt for the family dinner, giving him one bullet.

Fortunately my one bullet quickly became 1 roll of black & white 120 film per week.

In these early days I had no formal instruction or guidance, other than books at the library and most were of the typical textbook approach. Repeatedly, my interest faded, only to return every year or two until High School.  At this stage in life I was lucky to stumble upon a catalog from the 1955 The Family of Man exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art.  This work alone broadened my ideas on photography more than any other in that the “rules” of exposure and composition were regularly broken, but the result was astonishing.  Photography and the image became emotional. I soon discovered that the camera, which had been attached to my right hand daily for several years, was not always needed to capture that one image that would be brought home for dinner.

Where did ocularchrome come from? It all seems so simple when viewed through the eyes of my life experience—two words; Ocular and Chrome. Ocular; the easy one in being of or connected with the eyes or vision. Chrome takes a bit of a journey to the world of photography. While Chrome commonly refers to the metal chromium, I am more interested in the Greek Chrōma; a quality of color combining hue and saturation.  For me, chrome clearly originates from products like Kodachrome, Agfachrome and Fujchrome. All three represented the best and most expensive film in my early days and while the expense was beyond my budget, rarely I was able to splurge. Those early life lessons about a single bullet stuck.  Ocularchrome to me is the process of seeing, then perceiving and recording in ones mind the image as an artistic process.

Today I tend to shoot from the hip—literally. Most images of people presented here were shot using a rangefinder camera with manual settings pre-set for ISO, aperture, shutter speed and focus. I like to hold the camera in my right hand with my thumb on the shutter release. This allows me to align the film plane/sensor with the desired subject and composition with easy wrist movement while the camera is at my side at hip/waist level. I hope you enjoy the moments of humanity captured without the subject(s) being aware of the presence of my camera.

Enjoy your eyes and what they allow you to take in. Worship your mind and how it allows you to feel.  -Byron