Photo history

I

I started out with borrowed gear and some b/w darkroom stuff in 1968 (??). My first prints were all black. Then I got them to all white. My college roomie was my partner in the early exploration, I think it was his grandfather who donated the enlarger, safelight, pans, tongs, etc.

Eventually I lived the dream, with a Nikon FM SLR and an array of lenses, a Vivitar 283 flash, and lots of other stuff. Shot weddings, family vacations, tried some nature stuff, etc. Learned about f-stop, ASA, shutter speed, depth-of-field. Still have my Gralab darkroom timer.  Built my second darkroom in my first home (moved everything from my parent's basement). My sink was four feet long, plywood painted with epoxy. I still have my zero-EV exposure scale for 125 ASA. Those were the days.  Some of this is chronicled on my blog.

My wife then got interested in architecture and photography, so camera two was a Nikon 8008, another film camera but with auto everything. I never learned it, preferring to stick with my manual FM body. We did get a lot of Cokin filters and I added zoom and wide filters for my flash... and got her an SB 24 flash unit. More money than brains, no clue as to how to use it. Did learn about rear curtain though.

So from 1975 through 1992 it was a decrescendo relative to skill development. Lots of frames shot, a lot of snapshot and for-the-memory stuff, but no learning about new stuff.

James was born in '92 and video had moved (somewhat) from Beta to VHS, and cameras were shrinking to the point where one did not need to actually rest the vidcam on one's shoulder. So I added video to my memory-making. Into and through his hockey career my still photo work stagnated.

My first digital camera was a Nikon (natch) Coolpix 3700. That camera was our primary in our Yellowstone trip, and James was the primary photographer for the trip, although I did get some frames I liked. I also decided digital photography was coming along (although I had my doubts) so I decided to jump shortly thereafter.

I bought a Nikon D80. Just before the D90 came out. My typical timing. However, the D80 is still more than I can comprehend, so my old perspective of "mo' better" is/was, for all practical purposes, negated. I got plenty to learn. (this piece written circa 2014).

Here's more from my blog.

So, starting with more interest than skill or knowledge, I proceeded forward with a very flat learning curve.

II

Fast forward to 2017, and frame 7135 on my old D80 reveals my new crop sensor DSLR (Oct 28, 2017) Behold the Nikon D7500, with a 10-20mm lens:

With this purchase, I got a little more serious about photography. Three events drove this:

First, son James introduced me to Photoshop in July of 2017. I'd never used it prior.

Second, there was the total eclipse of the sun. I practiced long and hard ramping up to our sojourn to Carbondale, IL for the two minutes plus of totality. I shot the moon in DeWitt, with various combinations of lenses and settings. I hillbilly engineered a sun filter for my 500mm reflex lens and another for my 70-300 zoom lens. I found out about tripod vibration and learned to put my camera as close to the ground as possible. I sweated tremendously on the football practice field in Carbondale, failing to find the sun with the 500mm, and settling for the zoom lens. I lusted after the tilting LCD panels I saw all over, me with my head on the ground struggling to get the sun in the frame. And, overall as a photo shoot, it was an epic fail. The eclipse experience was phenomenal, but not the pix. (One of four blog posts regarding the eclipse)

Third and still affecting me, I discovered my fellow high school grad, Rob Shipman, had become a photo wizard. What an inspiration!

So I jumped into the next level, with a camera still out of my league, and zero skills in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Article 3 from my blog.

As of this writing in the spring of 2019, I'm a decent amateur, with beginner-plus Lightroom chops (and still pretty much at zero with Photoshop). 

But I love photography and messing around with the editing process. (photo below courtesy Matt Kohler in AK, 2018)

III

One thing I did do, way back in the day (1970?), which I very much enjoyed, was an experiment in pushing the contrast level to max (recall, this was in my b/w days). I took a shot (of the train tracks at F Lot on the MSU campus, much to tell about that whole thing) specifically for "original" max contrast (the end was in mind). I was quite conscious of the very dark inner rails, the light brightening the tops of the rails, and the white snow.

I developed the film, then made a 4X5 first print on paper, polycontrast paper, on the highest setting. There were different filters for different contrast variations,  as I recall. There was a tray for the filters in the Durst enlarger I used. Tech in '70.

Then, I developed and dried that print, and put it face-to-face with a fresh piece of photosensitive paper, now using a high contrast number of paper (paper came in contrast grades as well as "polycontrast" for use with the filters). I exposed it for about a minute, as as contact print with the fresh paper on the bottom and the light "shining through" the exposed and developed print on the top. Next, I developed and printed that picture, which produced a negative image.

The final pass was a repeat, using the new "print negative" face-to-face with another fresh piece of paper.

Voila. All middle tones pretty much wiped out.

Train Tracks at F Lot, South of Holden Hall, circa 1970