Photography is a way of feeling, touching, and loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. It remembers little things long after you have forgotten everything. Before I take my last breath on my last day on this earth. I want to know that I have made a difference and have left evidence that I was here.
As I was growing up, there always seemed to be someone with a camera around me. My mother, Aunt Mary, Aunt Helen, and Aunt Dorothy had cameras, still, and movies.
We would frequently get together at my aunts’ and uncles’ houses to watch 8mm movies and review people’s photos. It wasn’t until I was quite a bit older that I discovered my mother was a pretty good photographer, sometimes with a sense of humor. With all the cameras around me, is it any wonder that I was smitten with the photography bug? My folks bought me a camera I would use at Cub Scouts, on field trips, and around the farm. My interest became serious in the 1960s. I was in a dark room with a professional photographer who was developing a recent crime scene photograph. It was a picture taken at a murder/suicide. I watched him work in the darkroom – develop the film – prepare the trays with the developer, stopper, and water – load the negative in the enlarger – focus, and snap. He put the paper in the developer tray, and the scene slowly came to life.
A woman lying on the floor in a pool of blood with her hand reaching out for a Bible. It was sad-teary sad – but, at the same time, magical. There’s no other way to describe watching a blank piece of paper floating in a liquid and having it come to life. It was mystical, and I was hooked. Over the years, I have been involved with photography, taking pictures and developing them. I have sold many over the years.
As digital technology has significantly advanced in cameras and software, two of my passions combined, computers and photography. I have a creative eye for photography, but sometimes it needs fixing with Photoshop. In today’s world AI makes it somewhat difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not. I would raher search for one of my photos, or a stock photo, than to manufacture a photograph using AI. It is something we are going to have to deal with.
I also love to write and to tell stories. Since Facebook came into the world, and prior to that Google Blog, I’ve been “Blogging Away”.
I took a writer’s course from a professional writer. I need to stop just a minute to explain the difference between an author and a writer. An author is an individual who has a story to tell, and a writer is a person who puts that story on paper and transmits images with the pen and words. An author can be both. But, generally speaking, a lot of the people in the news who have experienced a tragedy, or survived some experience, or who have lived an interesting life, use writers to tell their story. I’ve been a ghostwriter for several books. It wasn’t my story, but I helped bring someone else’s story to book format. I got a check and I was happy.
I have learned that you need to be there, wherever you are. I know your saying, “What?” Be where you are. Be observant, take notes, write scenes in your head, or jot them down using the people you see. I have always, almost always, carried a camera. With today’s Camera Phones it is much easier to “not look like a photographer.” Sometimes you can capture a second in time.
A Few Images Which Captured A Second
