I began my photographic career as a young boy in the early 1950s in Philadelphia, PA when my mom bought me a Kodak Brownie camera and a developing kit. I can still remember the 3 trays that I used for film development and printing in my bathroom. I took many pictures with my first real camera. I have a number of those shots today in an old-fashioned scrapbook and in a digital album. They include shots of my mom, my sister, my dog, Prince on a bike and one of my sister with my friend, Jake, taken in my backyard at Ridge & Susquehanna in Strawberry Mansion, North Philly around 1955.
Years later, while I was in the Air Force, between 1960 and 1964, I got into 8mm video for a fast minute so-to-speak with a Bell & Howell. I can remember taking footage on a trip to Washington, DC with a fellow airman named Spriggs who was a cook. I took frames of the White House and the Capitol building as well as of the Treasury building. I might even have that film somewhere around today. Who knows.
When, I got out of the Service, I moved on to a regular point & shoot type of box and even tried the small, thin-looking, oblong, cartridge type camera, but the negatives were too small for a descent print job.
Around 1968, I studied photography with Richard Chait who was a student of Ansel Adams at one time. I was the only male in Richard’s class and the only one with a non 35mm camera. It wasn’t easy to deal with that situation, but I managed to get by without a 35mm to work with. Classes were held at the JCC in Center City Philly.
Eventually, I bought a Pentax K1000 and got lots of use out of it. Later on, I decided to upgrade to a Pentax MX 35mm, which I lost in pawn when they failed to send me a notice to make another payment. It’s a drag to be poor, or down and out. So, I went back to my K1000 until the late 1990s when it broke down completely while I was on a trip to Washington, DC with a friend named Bill. I was about to take a shot of him at the door of the Holocaust Memorial Museum when the shutter button would not depress. A while later, I sold the body, kept my lenses and picked up a cheap Vivitar point ‘n shoot camera, which I still have.
My next camera was a Polaroid 640 pixel, digital camera that I bought in the late 1990s. I really dug it until it literally burned out one day. So, I saved up some money again and got a Canon PowerShot A40 2.0 MP months later. The A40 served me well for about 3 years. I took it everywhere and got lots of mileage out of it. I grabbed quite a few shots for the Holocaust Awareness Museum’s newsletter and web site. I’m the editor and the webmaster. This past January 2005, I decided to move on up the ladder once more. I purchased a Canon PowerShot A95 5.0 MP camera to get pictures with more resolution at a larger size. I guess I am ready for the big time. 13 MP digital cameras are out as I write, but they are too high for me and quite frankly, overkill. A 5 MP camera can take real hip shots and print out at 5X7s, 6X4s and even higher with a fair degree of clarity. Well…..
I hope you like my pics and shots.