Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Old Self Portrait

Here is a except from a WhoU interview where I tell How I became involved in photography...
For how long have you done photography? How did you begin?

I started in High School in 1957...I worked for an Art & Photography Studio during my 3 month summer vacation in downtown Chicago...I like to draw and paint and I thought of becoming an illustrator like Norman Rockwell or Hayden Sunbloom (he painted the original CocoCola Santa Claus)...My aim at that time was to become the world's best illustrator...I learned that illustrator's needed photographs to work from so they had a photographer at the studio who shot the photos of their models for them...I knew that if I was going to succeed...I would have to do my own photography...I found an article in a photo magazine on how to build your own enlarger...So I bought an old Kodak pocket camera (the kind that had a fold out bellows lens and made an enlarger out of a light bulb..extension cord with a socket on one end...a wood box, milk glass, 5x7 picture frame with two panes of glass and a coffee can...oh yes...a 3' iron pipe and a piece of 3/4" ply wood...I think I still have it out in the shed...After taking my pictures with the camera, I developed the film and the took the back off the camera and the camera lens became part of the enlarger...I changed all the lights in the basement to red and amber bulbs (I didn't know the difference between them) and my father would holler at me when he was going down to put coal in the furnace to come down and change the bulbs...

Here is a picture of me I found the other day which I printed in my basement...I've been taking pictures of myself ever since..."No conceit in my family...I've got it all...LOL"

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