My first recollection of photography
dates from the late 1950's, when my father had some sort of peculiar
room in the house. The odd smell of the chemicals, brown bottles and
a vague remembrance of a cluttered backroom are the only memories now.
The next recollections of photography come from a few surviving photos
I took in the early 1960s. Those photographs are of friends, family,
and things important to me at the moment.
In the early 1970s my stepfather loaned
me an Argus C3 for an extended period of time. From that time on, photography
has been a habitual and essential part of my life.
My intention in those years was not so much to make predetermined photographs.
I photographed the happenstance of what was going on around me in the
normal course of events. My normal activities did not revolve around
making photographs, but I would generally include photography as part
of what I was doing, carrying a camera with me most of the time. As
a result, most of my photography during those first years was landscape
and street work. A large part of my current portfolios is too.
In the 1980s photography became an even
a more acute part of my life. I started taking classes, studying on
my own, selling a few photos and generally paying more attention to
both the art and craft of photography. Lunch hours became one-hour street
photography sessions, weekends and vacations became photographic expeditions,
and the more I learned the more I did not know.
In the late 1980s my photography interest
consumed my prior career. My artistic approach to photography, while
more refined than in my earlier years, is still generally quit simple
and similar. I think most of my photography is still a visual journal
of my explorations and interests. The majority of my photography is
'found' images, a response to what was happening and what I saw. This
type of work is probably the most common form of photography. There
are some of my portfolios where a lot of forethought was involved and
resulting images very much preconceived or the result of extensive dark
room work.
The majority of my photography is traditional
silver gelatin based black and white photography but I will use other
techniques I feel will best interpret my response to a subject such
as hand coloring, altered Polaroid SX70s, color photography and some
digital photography.