Gary Leu

My Dad introduced me to photography when I was just a boy.  He taught my brother and me the fundamentals of darkroom practices, chemicals, enlargers, printing, film developing, and printing techniques. I worked in the photo-journalism departments of both Jr. and Sr. High Schools using everything from sheet film to 35mm. In college, I worked for a professional portrait studio as a lab tech and photographer. When new technology emerged affording many of us the capabilities of shooting video I eagerly adopted the 8mm film and soon the VHS and Beta tape platforms.  It wasn't long before the much smaller 8mm videotape and Hi8 emerged on the scene.  DV and mini DV machines popped up to capture our motion pictures and when the hard drive and the introduction of the mini DVD camcorders I thought we finally arrived!  Here I was, burning my HD movies right on a playable DVD that I could pop into any player or edit suite.  Of course, we've progressed way beyond that these days with the advent of compact solid state media storage and DSLRs that shoot amazing HD video. Needless to say, most of today's smartphones with multiple lenses, image stabilization, and editing capabilities put a lot of DSLRs in the dust.     All this time I've been a freelance photographer, videographer, and avid hobbyist.  In my most recent professional career, I worked as a broadcast maintenance engineer at Fox2 in St. Louis, picking up new studio techniques for a professional look. In addition, for the past couple of decades, I've been building and managing websites using HTML5 and a variety of content management systems.  I've been a photo and video contributor for IHS Productions, Art of Film, and LLS Media Solutions. VideoSkills Academy, JellybeanTelevision, and JellybeanAcademy. Keeping up with the advances in technology can be challenging and enriching. I desire to share with you the experiences I've gained over the years that have given me unbelievable enjoyment and satisfaction.