Photos
I embarked on photography with Gary Hobbs, my college roomie and lifelong friend. He got darkroom gear from his grandfather. My folks had space in the basement for us to build a darkroom.
Oh boy.
Did we ever know nothing!
Cheap-ass cameras, all manual. Box style. Argus, I think. Both of us somehow had one, as I recall. I did a Google picture search. This is more camera than I remember... more control. But it's certainly the same damn box:
Oh boy.
Did we ever know nothing!
Cheap-ass cameras, all manual. Box style. Argus, I think. Both of us somehow had one, as I recall. I did a Google picture search. This is more camera than I remember... more control. But it's certainly the same damn box:
We somehow learned about ISO, which was ASA then, and EV, and shutter and aperture relationships. We also went blindly (ha ha) into the darkroom, buying developer, stop, and fixer. We had a dryer for the prints, a heated stainless steel surface with a canvas one would stretch over the polished surface to keep the prints from waffling and curling. In theory, of course.
We printed all-black "photos", and all-white ones. We learned about film developing. And so on.
And we went on "shoots". I remember one in Rose Lake Wildlife Research Station, near East Lansing. Gary had much more of an eye than me. I was envious.
Eventually, we graduated to a modern enlarger, and better contrast control, and burning and dodging. Eventually, I bought a Nikon FM. Eventually, a motor drive, and more lenses. And we added flash photography.
I was hooked.
When Gary went off to SIU for his Ph.D., it didn't end, for me. Nor for him. We both kept at it, and although we grew apart, our inspiration for capturing images persists to today.
I shot weddings for friends, tried (and failed) at sports photography.
I shot hundreds, if not thousands, of rolls of film, B & W and color and yes, Kodachrome. Fuji too. I built a darkroom sink in the basement of our first house, by then married to Linda. I remember cheaping out on the sink/cabinet, using 1/4- and 1/2-inch plywood and then painting it. I used waterproof paint for the "sink", which was big enough to accommodate 4 11X14 trays in a row, ending with a conventional stainless sink to the far right. I did it in such a way as to be able to hose down the whole shebang after a session.
I didn't do very much darkroom color... too complex. But I did a ton of B&W. I shot our vacations, and travels, and kids and events at schools, and family get-togethers.... a bit of landscape stuff, sunrises, sunsets... I remember getting up before dawn to shoot the Key deer (yes, in the keys)... that sort of thing.
And somewhere along the line, the wheels fell off the photo truck. Shooting became sporadic, and then digital sort of started to take hold, and James arrived, and outside of baby shots and family events, the photography pretty much ended for me.
Comments
Thankfully.
Gwho