I was largely self-taught up to entering college. At the age of 12, I became obsessed with owning a 35mm camera after an Uncle on my Mother's side showed me some of his wonderful Cibachrome prints and Ektachrome Infrared Slides of the Sonora Desert and Big Bend National Park in West Texas. (BTW, he's still active in that area, shooting digital and I"m trying to entice him back to film with the new Ektachrome)
For over a year, I obsessively poured-over everything I could find on cameras; endlessly perusing the microscopic ads in the back of Popular Photography; piecing together camera outfits I could never afford and weighing the pros and cons of my mythical systems.
Finally, at the age of 13, I got a job pouring concrete at our High School, building a new football field. Armed with my new job, I then had the chutzpa to walk into the local county bank and proceede to talk the President into loaning me $350 whole dollars to purchase my first SLR, based on the promise of my gainful employment.
Well, I did it; I went and bought a Minolta SRT MCII a KMart with 50mm lens and a 2x teleconverter, a bag and a flash, along with several "yards" of KMart film; big plastic sleeves of rebadged Ferannia color negative.
It took all Summer, but I paid that camera off and started shooting anything and everything that moved. An older neighbor saw my obsession and gave me an incomplete, decrepit Omega enlarger, several boxes of age fogged Velox and some old chipped-up ceramic trays, so I set up a darkroom in a outbuilding and started turning out dreadful "enlargements" of my "best" photos. It was pretty pathetic but I had a lot of fun...
Over the years up to college, I worked Summers in the oilfields of Oklahoma and slowly accumulated enough gear to have a reasonable outfilt; most money went to my family, but I managed to divert a bit here and there to add a lens or a tripod and to afford a few rolls of film to shoot.
In college, I started in Journalism, but was bitten by the motion picture bug, so I went down that trail, but not before being taught the fundamentals of the Zone System and much better darkroom techniques by Louis Parkhill, a very gifted Photo Journalist at Murray State Junior College in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. From there, I worked under Charles Nedwin Hockman at the University of Oklahoma as his moton picture equipment manager and assistant for 4 years in the H.H. Herbert School of Journalism where I learned extraordinary things about motion picture production from his incredibly practical courses.
I'll cut the rest down to the minimum: I worked Television for 7 years in Texas, Oklahoma an Arkansas as a EFP Photographer, several years as a Jumbotron and Slo-mo operator at a Horse Race track and 5 years as the Lab Supervisor of Ohio State University's Department of Photography and Cinema; supervising all motion picture and still photo labs. When OSU closed the Department in 1994, I lucked into a job with the Library of Congress Motion PIcture Lab where I have been since, other than a 5 year separation to form a Motion Picture Digital Restoration Company during the Great Recession (not the best move I ever made). I have worked there as a printer/operator, timer/grader and Lab Supervisor, mainly restoring 35mm nitrate films from 1894 to the 1970's.
All through this time, I have actively collected and used still film cameras; trying to learn all I can about photo chemistry and equipment. I have too many cameras, but I use the excuse that I am buying what I couldn't afford when I was young.
I still hold film as my first love, but I don't' neglect digital; either still or moving image. I love to learn; it keeps me alive.
Probably shouldn't be writing this now, as I am dead tired. so excuse the sloppiness. I should go to bed...
PS: While I don't have a lot currently to show for my personal work on Photrio, I am in the process of rebuilding my darkroom and hope to have it online in about a year or so. In the meantime, I do my part to keep film alive by exposing (or causing to be exposed) and developed about 30,000 feet of B&W film a week; Kodak and Orwo. Hopefully, that will count for something toward keeping our art form alive.
For over a year, I obsessively poured-over everything I could find on cameras; endlessly perusing the microscopic ads in the back of Popular Photography; piecing together camera outfits I could never afford and weighing the pros and cons of my mythical systems.
Finally, at the age of 13, I got a job pouring concrete at our High School, building a new football field. Armed with my new job, I then had the chutzpa to walk into the local county bank and proceede to talk the President into loaning me $350 whole dollars to purchase my first SLR, based on the promise of my gainful employment.
Well, I did it; I went and bought a Minolta SRT MCII a KMart with 50mm lens and a 2x teleconverter, a bag and a flash, along with several "yards" of KMart film; big plastic sleeves of rebadged Ferannia color negative.
It took all Summer, but I paid that camera off and started shooting anything and everything that moved. An older neighbor saw my obsession and gave me an incomplete, decrepit Omega enlarger, several boxes of age fogged Velox and some old chipped-up ceramic trays, so I set up a darkroom in a outbuilding and started turning out dreadful "enlargements" of my "best" photos. It was pretty pathetic but I had a lot of fun...
Over the years up to college, I worked Summers in the oilfields of Oklahoma and slowly accumulated enough gear to have a reasonable outfilt; most money went to my family, but I managed to divert a bit here and there to add a lens or a tripod and to afford a few rolls of film to shoot.
In college, I started in Journalism, but was bitten by the motion picture bug, so I went down that trail, but not before being taught the fundamentals of the Zone System and much better darkroom techniques by Louis Parkhill, a very gifted Photo Journalist at Murray State Junior College in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. From there, I worked under Charles Nedwin Hockman at the University of Oklahoma as his moton picture equipment manager and assistant for 4 years in the H.H. Herbert School of Journalism where I learned extraordinary things about motion picture production from his incredibly practical courses.
I'll cut the rest down to the minimum: I worked Television for 7 years in Texas, Oklahoma an Arkansas as a EFP Photographer, several years as a Jumbotron and Slo-mo operator at a Horse Race track and 5 years as the Lab Supervisor of Ohio State University's Department of Photography and Cinema; supervising all motion picture and still photo labs. When OSU closed the Department in 1994, I lucked into a job with the Library of Congress Motion PIcture Lab where I have been since, other than a 5 year separation to form a Motion Picture Digital Restoration Company during the Great Recession (not the best move I ever made). I have worked there as a printer/operator, timer/grader and Lab Supervisor, mainly restoring 35mm nitrate films from 1894 to the 1970's.
All through this time, I have actively collected and used still film cameras; trying to learn all I can about photo chemistry and equipment. I have too many cameras, but I use the excuse that I am buying what I couldn't afford when I was young.
I still hold film as my first love, but I don't' neglect digital; either still or moving image. I love to learn; it keeps me alive.
Probably shouldn't be writing this now, as I am dead tired. so excuse the sloppiness. I should go to bed...
PS: While I don't have a lot currently to show for my personal work on Photrio, I am in the process of rebuilding my darkroom and hope to have it online in about a year or so. In the meantime, I do my part to keep film alive by exposing (or causing to be exposed) and developed about 30,000 feet of B&W film a week; Kodak and Orwo. Hopefully, that will count for something toward keeping our art form alive.
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