I grew up in a Dark Room....

I grew up in a darkroom. Really!

My father had many careers including Sports Editor of the local newspaper. Part of the job required taking sports photos and developing them quickly enough to have them for the next days edition. This career branched out into taking team pictures at the local little leagues, charity golf tournaments, and special events. We had a film processing darkroom at home and I spent much of my childhood slaving away under dim red light to meet deadlines and fill orders.

I learned about exposure, contrast, cropping, and the effects of chemical temperatures on photo paper and film. But I wasn't allowed to touch the cameras! At least not until I got older...... much older.

This experience gave me an unusual perspective on photography. By the time I finally began to acquire my own 30mm cameras and lenses I had solved the secret to good photography. I'll tell you the secret at the end of this blog.

I have taken hundreds of rolls of film and when I switched to digital thousands more shots. We have about thirty family photo albums containing memorable moments frozen in time. (Superwoman loves scrap booking).

The photos in this blog are 99.9% mine. The trouble is...... they don't make left-handed cameras. For that matter they don't make one-handed cameras either. It is becoming increasingly difficult to change shutter speeds and F-stops given the small dials and buttons. Sometimes I miss the shot that I knew I wanted.

I will miss this hobby when it's gone. Like everything else connected with this dreaded disease, the bulb doesn't burn out, it slowly dims until it is too dark and cold to provide comfort. Its ironic that I started in a room with a dim red light.

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Here is some samples from my garden.
Click on images for full resolution.

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PS. The secret to good photography:
Take lots and lots of pictures!