While other kids spent weekends pitching sliders or tossing the football around, I was watching old movies on a tiny black & white television in my garage. Everything from classic Hollywood like The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca, to "spaghetti westerns" like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I was fascinated by how light and shadow were used to help tell the story, and give a film its signature "look."

Having taught photography, and spent several years traveling the US for one of the top-ranked, award winning Virtual Tour production companies in North America, I continued to explore ways of bringing a dramatic look into still photography. So while I do enjoy taking traditional portraits, I also create something that I call "Single Shot Cinema," which essentially looks like imagery plucked from a motion picture. It allows a viewer to imagine whatever "story" that they desire to be going on in the shot

Visual images are extremely powerful, and I continue to look for new ways of exploring how to create compelling photography that makes people sit up and take notice.

-- Chuck Franke (CM Franke)