Okay this is really long. so long it is in two posts. LOL
Back in the 70's I made about a third of my living as a professional photographer. For about a year I also taught modeling for the photographer at a Denver modeling school. In these classes I taught aspiring models how to work with a photographer, how to pose, helped them become comfortable, and we began to develop a portfolio for them to embark on their careers. I had the most fun doing this and for a while I was teaching four classes a week of about 7-10 students each, I shot 1 roll per student per week for eight weeks, thats about 28-40 rolls of film per week. I developed and contact printed all of them myself in my darkroom. I was also doing some other kinds of work for various clients. I did PR photography for Frontier and Texas International Airlines, Lerin Cosmetics, some local lingerie designers, and an occasional wedding (which I hated doing).
When I wasnt doing photography I would do other work such as house painting, repairs, plumbing, or if I had nothing to do I would call up the temp agency and do office work, 10 key, filing, clerical. I kept pretty busy and made a decent living but it was very hard to buy the camera equipment I wanted, and I wanted it all!
I built up a fairly complete Canon F1 system, with motor drive, 9 lenses three strobes and assorted accessories. I was only able to afford an odd assortment of studio lights and reflectors, whatever was on sale or clearance. A proper studio strobe system was always out of reach. Medium format, a Hassleblad system, was way too expensive, as was a view camera. My darkroom setup was an Omega B22XL enlarger with both a condenser head and a dichroic lamp head, I had a color meter system but found it to be useless to me, I made as many test prints without it as I did with it, so I sold it. I developed B&W, C-41 color negatives and E-6 Ektachrome films and I printed B&W and color. I fell in love with Cibachrome and eventually stopped using negative film altogether.
In 1980 my roommate was getting married, I couldnt afford the house we were sharing and I needed a change of scenery and moved to Los Angeles where my parents had gone about two years before. I lived with them for about 6 months while I tried to establish myself. I went so far as to rent an upstairs apartment in west LA to set up a studio and darkroom. This was an unused vacant apartment that was uninhabitable due to lack of maintenance and tenant damage so I got an exceptional deal. I spent over a month cleaning and repairing, remodeling and patching the roof and getting it ready to use, only to have the owner throw me out when it was fixed up so she could rent it for a lot more money. Since this whole deal was set up by my father, she was a friend of his. I got screwed. By now I was completely broke, I had pissed off the biggest temp agency in the area purely by accident and could not get any temp work. I was finding it very difficult to get anyone to even talk to me about working as a photographer there were so many in the area. I had no money to return to Denver, I was stuck and disillusioned.
So I fell back on my experience as a handyman. I put an ad in the Recycler, a weekly classified that was sold in stores, private party ads were free and my three line service directory ad cost about $7.50 for the week. The day it came out I got a call to convert a house into a duplex. This required a kitchen a bath and a new entry. They accepted my bid and I was off and running.
For the next twelve years I worked non stop, turning down more work than I did. I expanded my skills, knowledge and equipment, worked hard to satisfy even the most cantankerous customers, developed my own method for kitchen cabinet refacing that was without equal in the market. Went to trade conventions and shared my ideas with the manufacturers representatives and saw many of my ideas appear in the market. While this life was very satisfying, I never made very much more than a decent living. I eventually got my contractors license and specialized in kitchen and bath remodeling. I did all the work including tile, plumbing, plaster, electrical, cabinetmaking, etc.
As a perfectionist, I gave up on trying to hire people early. Either I had to redo their work or they spent so much time doing it that I lost money. I remember one time I was installing a sprinkler system. I dug all the trenches, laid out the system, and when it was completed and the dirt needed to be put back in the trenches I went down the state employment office and hired a guy to do this. It took almost 90 minutes to get back to the job with the guy, I showed him what I wanted done and went inside to work on the kitchen. About 2 hours later I went outside to see how it was going and the guy was gone. His coat was hanging on the fence where he had left it. About 6 feet of trench was filled in. I never did see him again. I threw his coat away about a week later. I filled in the trenches in about three hours and that was the last time I hired anyone for general labor.
Throughout I always wanted to somehow get back to photography, but there was always something that stopped me. The truck would break down, I got married and divorced, I was booked up with kitchens to do. Some might say I was never fully committed to photography. Well I suppose if that means was I willing to sleep in my car and go hungry, then no I was not that committed.
In 1993 I moved back to Denver and continued with my remodeling business. I later rented a commercial space and set up a real cabinet shop. I built kitchens and other cabinetry and also espresso carts and shipped them all over the country. My landlord started making noise about raising the rent so I made a deal with him to remodel the adjoining house for free including a completely new kitchen and bath in exchange for the rent staying at the same level for two additional years. Of course as soon as the house was done he started eviction proceedings so he could capitalize on my work. In the end at least I had learned something from my experience in California, since our agreement was in writing he had to pay me for all the work at fair market value. But I still ended up having to move. Not only could I not find a shop space I could afford but by now I was pretty tired of remodeling. I tried a year as an over the road truck driver, worked in a cabinet shop, got married, home depot for 5 months, then measured kitchens for refacing for a national chain. Then my wife and I opened a retail arts and craft rubber stamp and scrapbook store. For four years I worked 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. The store was growing and going fine until Sept 11, when the whole economy took a bit hit along with the twin towers. We closed the store about a year and a half ago and last November I moved out here to the prairie of northeastern Colorado.
Life and time has a tendency to get away from you. One day youre twenty and you cant imagine life at fifty, and the next moment youre fifty and wondering what the hell happened.
A couple of years ago I tried to get a view camera system put together, I found a 4x5 Omega on ebay, got a good deal on a lens, a horseman roll film back. But when they arrived my now ex-wife had a fit. I never even got a chance to try the camera. It had to go and the money had to be put back. She forced me to sell off my canon camera equipment and many tools with the money going into the business.
Back in the 70's I made about a third of my living as a professional photographer. For about a year I also taught modeling for the photographer at a Denver modeling school. In these classes I taught aspiring models how to work with a photographer, how to pose, helped them become comfortable, and we began to develop a portfolio for them to embark on their careers. I had the most fun doing this and for a while I was teaching four classes a week of about 7-10 students each, I shot 1 roll per student per week for eight weeks, thats about 28-40 rolls of film per week. I developed and contact printed all of them myself in my darkroom. I was also doing some other kinds of work for various clients. I did PR photography for Frontier and Texas International Airlines, Lerin Cosmetics, some local lingerie designers, and an occasional wedding (which I hated doing).
When I wasnt doing photography I would do other work such as house painting, repairs, plumbing, or if I had nothing to do I would call up the temp agency and do office work, 10 key, filing, clerical. I kept pretty busy and made a decent living but it was very hard to buy the camera equipment I wanted, and I wanted it all!
I built up a fairly complete Canon F1 system, with motor drive, 9 lenses three strobes and assorted accessories. I was only able to afford an odd assortment of studio lights and reflectors, whatever was on sale or clearance. A proper studio strobe system was always out of reach. Medium format, a Hassleblad system, was way too expensive, as was a view camera. My darkroom setup was an Omega B22XL enlarger with both a condenser head and a dichroic lamp head, I had a color meter system but found it to be useless to me, I made as many test prints without it as I did with it, so I sold it. I developed B&W, C-41 color negatives and E-6 Ektachrome films and I printed B&W and color. I fell in love with Cibachrome and eventually stopped using negative film altogether.
In 1980 my roommate was getting married, I couldnt afford the house we were sharing and I needed a change of scenery and moved to Los Angeles where my parents had gone about two years before. I lived with them for about 6 months while I tried to establish myself. I went so far as to rent an upstairs apartment in west LA to set up a studio and darkroom. This was an unused vacant apartment that was uninhabitable due to lack of maintenance and tenant damage so I got an exceptional deal. I spent over a month cleaning and repairing, remodeling and patching the roof and getting it ready to use, only to have the owner throw me out when it was fixed up so she could rent it for a lot more money. Since this whole deal was set up by my father, she was a friend of his. I got screwed. By now I was completely broke, I had pissed off the biggest temp agency in the area purely by accident and could not get any temp work. I was finding it very difficult to get anyone to even talk to me about working as a photographer there were so many in the area. I had no money to return to Denver, I was stuck and disillusioned.
So I fell back on my experience as a handyman. I put an ad in the Recycler, a weekly classified that was sold in stores, private party ads were free and my three line service directory ad cost about $7.50 for the week. The day it came out I got a call to convert a house into a duplex. This required a kitchen a bath and a new entry. They accepted my bid and I was off and running.
For the next twelve years I worked non stop, turning down more work than I did. I expanded my skills, knowledge and equipment, worked hard to satisfy even the most cantankerous customers, developed my own method for kitchen cabinet refacing that was without equal in the market. Went to trade conventions and shared my ideas with the manufacturers representatives and saw many of my ideas appear in the market. While this life was very satisfying, I never made very much more than a decent living. I eventually got my contractors license and specialized in kitchen and bath remodeling. I did all the work including tile, plumbing, plaster, electrical, cabinetmaking, etc.
As a perfectionist, I gave up on trying to hire people early. Either I had to redo their work or they spent so much time doing it that I lost money. I remember one time I was installing a sprinkler system. I dug all the trenches, laid out the system, and when it was completed and the dirt needed to be put back in the trenches I went down the state employment office and hired a guy to do this. It took almost 90 minutes to get back to the job with the guy, I showed him what I wanted done and went inside to work on the kitchen. About 2 hours later I went outside to see how it was going and the guy was gone. His coat was hanging on the fence where he had left it. About 6 feet of trench was filled in. I never did see him again. I threw his coat away about a week later. I filled in the trenches in about three hours and that was the last time I hired anyone for general labor.
Throughout I always wanted to somehow get back to photography, but there was always something that stopped me. The truck would break down, I got married and divorced, I was booked up with kitchens to do. Some might say I was never fully committed to photography. Well I suppose if that means was I willing to sleep in my car and go hungry, then no I was not that committed.
In 1993 I moved back to Denver and continued with my remodeling business. I later rented a commercial space and set up a real cabinet shop. I built kitchens and other cabinetry and also espresso carts and shipped them all over the country. My landlord started making noise about raising the rent so I made a deal with him to remodel the adjoining house for free including a completely new kitchen and bath in exchange for the rent staying at the same level for two additional years. Of course as soon as the house was done he started eviction proceedings so he could capitalize on my work. In the end at least I had learned something from my experience in California, since our agreement was in writing he had to pay me for all the work at fair market value. But I still ended up having to move. Not only could I not find a shop space I could afford but by now I was pretty tired of remodeling. I tried a year as an over the road truck driver, worked in a cabinet shop, got married, home depot for 5 months, then measured kitchens for refacing for a national chain. Then my wife and I opened a retail arts and craft rubber stamp and scrapbook store. For four years I worked 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. The store was growing and going fine until Sept 11, when the whole economy took a bit hit along with the twin towers. We closed the store about a year and a half ago and last November I moved out here to the prairie of northeastern Colorado.
Life and time has a tendency to get away from you. One day youre twenty and you cant imagine life at fifty, and the next moment youre fifty and wondering what the hell happened.
A couple of years ago I tried to get a view camera system put together, I found a 4x5 Omega on ebay, got a good deal on a lens, a horseman roll film back. But when they arrived my now ex-wife had a fit. I never even got a chance to try the camera. It had to go and the money had to be put back. She forced me to sell off my canon camera equipment and many tools with the money going into the business.
)
