Photography

At the end of my Sophomore year at East High School I was signing up for classes and I needed some elective credits. As I looked over my options I remembered my sister taking a photography class. More specifically I remember going on a family vacation to California where we visited the Getty Museum. While there I can so vividly remember Anne (my sister) pull out her camera to take a picture for her photography class. I was fascinated by how this little thing worked. She must have noticed my curiosity because she let me take a peek through the viewfinder and play around with the focus ring. It was so amazing to see how much control I could have with focus and how much fun it was to have that control. I remember listening to the sound of the shutter each time she pushed the shutter-release. As this memory came flooding into my mind it only made sense to sign up for Photography. Little did I know that this would spark a love for capturing the world around me on film.

Throughout that year I learned how to control different creative aspects such as depth-of-field, motion, and grain. It was an amazing adventure to learn how to load my very own Canon AE-1 film camera and how to adjust the aperture and shutter speed to get the desired result. It was with this camera that I captured my very first negatives that I later turned into prints. The first time I stepped into the film developing darkroom I was so nervous about doing something crazy and messing up my roll of film. Having the lights go out to be left in complete and utter darkness didn't help to ease my fears. I was forced to rely entirely on my sense of touch to pry open the film canister, load that film onto a spool, cut it away form the canister, load the spool into a lightproof container and get the blasted lid screwed on straight, which was much harder than it sounds. Once this was done it was time for the chemicals. Oh the joys of film photography! Once this was done it was off to the printing darkroom to actually make my final prints. 

Four years later I am still in love with Photography. There is something so satisfying about going into the world and capturing what I see in a picture that can then be shared. I don't claim to be any good but I sure enjoy it. Every person sees the world through their own eyes and photography is one of the best ways, in my humble opinion, to share the way I see the world. I love it.

Just in case you may want to see a few of my pictures just  Click here.