Another Page Turns

Well, today is my 45th birthday.  45 years ago I sprang forth unto the scene, full of cries and waughs.  I was such a cute baby.  What went wrong.

I have had a camera in my hands and making photographs seriously and otherwise, on and off again, since 1982 with an old box camera for a Christmas gift from my grandmother, Mary Walrath.  It was not an earth shattering gift, I did not see any direction at that early stage.  But I, to this day, fondly remember using that camera and a couple photographs used with it.

I was given a Kodak Disc Camera for Christmas in 1984.  I did not use it much.  however, I documented my own 15th birthday party.  Wow, 30 years ago.  I have a lot of photographs of good childhood friends to this day as a result.  Dean, Mark, GT and others.  No great shakes this camera, but it more than served it purpose.

I then took a point and shoot with me on a mission trip to Ensenada in 1986.  I exposed a few rolls down there.  A lot of landscapes of the desert and coastal mountains which have not survived to this day.  I recall them, though and one might think that given the skill I have today there might have been something going.  As they were, they were documents of what I was experiencing so that I could show all once I returned.

I used my mother's X-370 for yearbook senior year.  I don't recall shooting much that made the yearbook, if anything.  But I made some pretty decent photographs with the camera and black and white film at my youth group in Dover, Delaware in 1989.  I still have a few of those.  Some good poses and a couple of fantastic candids.

I then bounced around a few cameras until I was given my first camera in 1997.  A Minolta XG-M.  And my own photography began in earnest.  I learned the basics of control by using that little yellow booklet that Kodak published on making better 35mm photographs.  The name escapes me but that was probably it.

I used this camera off and on for a few years.  My mother, Kathryn, had learned the ins and outs well enough to get me started down the road of learning how to manipulate a camera through the exposure settings and depth of field and such.  I poured over the pages of Outdoor Photography and fancied myself a Galen Rowell wannabe.

Then in October 2001, Dad and I escaped one weekend to the Outer Banks and I accidentally made the photograph that pushed me over the edge.  We visited old haunts and ended up at Bodie Island Lighthouse. The light was flat, a front had rolled through the night before.  I had made a couple of lackluster exposures.  We pile in the Jeep and I begin to back out of the space when I look up and the lighthouse is brightly lit by the sun.  I scramble out, stalling the Jeep and almost backing over my own foot in the process.  I snap a horizontal and vertical shot of the lighthouse and the turbulent clouds beyond and get back in and we go our way.  Imagine my surprise when getting the photographs back from Cutler Camera in the Dover Mall and finding that someone had stuck a photograph in with all the pictures.  And to this day, I have seen one or two photographs of the Light that rival mine.

In 2002 my photography took off.  I was burning film.  About 40 rolls that year.  On my salary, that was a good bit.  In 2003 I joined my mother in her wedding and portrait business, A Moment In Time Photography.  In 2005 I joined APUG (www.apug.org), the Analog Photography Users Group and have enjoyed a lot of conversations there over the last few years.  Made a few friends as well.  In 2006 I purchased a Mamiya M645j medium format camera.  Also in 2006 I discovered Ansel Adams, his work and his technical series of books.  It is here where I am forced forward in photography.  And I have NEVER looked back.  In 2007 I began to process my own film.  In 2008 I began to make my own prints.  That year I also purchased my first large format camera and made a few exposures with expired Polaroid P/N 55 film.  And on and on.

Yes, a lot has happened in my life.  But, seeing as this is a photography blog after all, I thought it would be good to share my progression through photography through the years.  A lot of people have been influencial to me.  Mary Walrath (grandmother), Kathryn Walrath (mommy), Dot Tarbuck, Damon Clauss (grandfather), Galen Rowell, Ansel Adams, many others, and of course my late wife Faith Elisabeth Walrath.  How I miss her.  She was just really getting into photography. And she encouraged my own photography.  I really appreciated her in my life.

So, what lies ahead?  No one knows.  But I can hardly wait for it to get here.  It will be so grand.

Happy Birthday to me, I guess.