My Photography Biography
I have been interested in photograhy ever since I bought my first single-lens reflex camera (SLR) at JCPenney. My trusty Pentax K-1000 got thousands of hours of use, travelling with me to Niagara Falls, The Outer Banks, England and France. Even when its lenses were gritty with sand, it continued taking awesome pictures. Its simplicity made me learn the manual settings, because that's all there was! Believe me I took a lot of bad pictures because of messed up f-stops, incorrect ISO settings, too fast or too slow shutter speeds, poor focus, etc., etc. The worst part of it was back in the 1980s you couldn't see your pictures for several days, until you drove through your local Fotomat and picked up your prints. For those of you too young to remember, here's a YouTube video of an old Fotomat commercial from 1984. And yes, I did know someone who worked in a 6 x 10 foot kiosk in the middle of a plaza parking lot in Hubbard, Ohio. My friend was not quite as pleased with her job as the "Fotomate" in this video!
When I took my first class in black and white film photography at Youngstown State University, it really opened up a new world of artistic expression for me as I learned that even after the photograph was taken, a photographer could continue to create in the darkroom. I learned how to manually burn and dodge, sepia tone, mask and make photograms. Mouse over the picture at right to see an example of my darkroom work.
Marlboro Man, Buffalo, TX, 1986
As film cameras became digital, I lagged behind, just making due with inexpensive point and shoot digital cameras, taking snapshots of my kids and trying to capture quick images while on vacation. I didn't know how to use PhotoShop, so my photos just filled up my computer, and never got edited. Meanwhile, my K-1000 collected dust and its battery died.
Finally I bought my first digital SLR, a Canon EOS Rebel T2i, and I began to rediscover the joy of photography. I took a PhotoShop class as part of my Web Developer degree at Columbus State Community College. I learned all about layers and how to manipulate images digitally. Although I learned a lot, I am still an amateur with much to learn, both about manual camera settings and about the photo editing process. This site represents the best of what I have done lately, but also tips, tricks and resources of what I hope I will be able to do better someday. Who knows maybe I'll get into video, or dust off the K-1000 next. My photographic saga continues!