About Dan Caldemeyer The Photographer

Dan CaldemeyerI have been a professional photographer for almost 40 years. I started out in landscape and nature photography just for the fun of it. I then expanded into wedding photography. Soon i was booked solid every weekend by word of mouth advertising only.

I then ventured into aerial photography and photographing yearling Thoroughbreds for the Keenland Sales brochures in Lexington, Ky. One day someone asked me to photograph a local rock band and that led to photographing the big name concerts. In 1984, John Mellencamp purchased the one time use rights to 2 of my photos of him in concert for use on his 1984-1986 World Tour Poster. My name was on every poster and t-shirt sold world wide for 3 years. Yes,…i am proud of that. My agent in New York (Star File Photo), since bought out by Rolling Stone bought the one time use rights of 2 of my Prince photos for resale to U.S. News. My ears are pretty well shot after the many concerts i photographed.

You could say that i have changed from Wild……Life Photography (rock concerts), to Wildlife & Nature Photography. It is much kinder and gentler to my ears. In 2005 i took the year off to gather photos for my up coming Juried fine art shows. I traveled all over New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, Alaska and Africa gathering these photos. 2009 my photo of “Reflections of Painters Pond” Yellowstone NP was chosen by The Rio Grande Fine Arts Festivals to grace their billboards and for TV advertising for their 4 shows that year. Two of their shows are ranked in the top 17 &18th in the country out of 3000 shows. “Shadows of the Early Morning Mist” Yellowstone NP took first place in the NM Professional Photographers Division.

I traveled full time coast to coast in my 40’ Class A diesel motorhome doing art shows all over the U.S. for several years. These were the top rated Juried Fine Art Shows in the country. I had a complete photo studio set up in my motorhome with 2 printers. A 9900 Epson printer that was 74 “ wide and weighed 260 lbs. I printed my canvas on that printer and my regular photo paper on the other printer. Some of the Colorado shows i have done include Telluride, Crested Butte, Carbondale, Boulder, Breckenridge, Castle Rock, Aspen, Vail, Frisco, Beaver Creek, and others. The shows i did in Arizona included, Sedona, Scottsdale, Fountan Hills, Tuscon, Carefree. The New Mexico shows included Sante Fe, & Albuquerque. In California i did the La Jolla, Del Mar, Palm Desert, Laquinta shows. In Texas i did 3 shows in the Dallas Ft Worth area. I did shows all over Florida from Jupiter, Palm Beach, Key Biscayne, Naples, etc.

When the mortgage market crashed and then the stock mkt and then the world economy crashed thousands of Art Galleries were closing world wide and i had to get out of the art show business. I am now doing Aerial Photography all over the country. In other words i hang out of helicopters with no doors on them taking aerial photographs for a living.

Camera Equipment used by Dan

Canon 5D, 5D Mark 2, 40D, 60D & the 1D Mark 2

My lenses include the Sigma 300-800mm (i call it The SigMonster because it is 24” long and weighs 14 lbs)
Canon 100-400mm, Canon 70-200mm, Canon 200, Canon 24-105, Sigma Macro 105mm, Canon 50mm.

You don’t need expensive equipment to take great photos. I always recommend the Canon Rebel. Whatever the cheapest one is at the time that has 2 lenses.

It is not the camera that takes great images it is the person using the camera that takes great images. I teach Photography Workshops. I am in Bakersfield, Ca until around June of 2016 and then on to the Sonoma, Ca/Santa Rosa, Ca area until the Nov/Dec 2016 and then down to Palm Springs, Ca for the winter and then early spring of 2017.