Been involved with photography since my grandfather first fascinated me watching a print magically materialize in the developer tray under the dim red lights of his garage darkroom. A machinist by trade, he build his enlargers from scratch. In retrospect, the optics utilized were slightly suspect, but still, a beautiful black and white print of generous format could be made.
Anxious to repeat this process on my own, I collected a few “Cool Whip” tubs that my mom was saving under the counter for unknown reasons, and proceeded to blow the few pennies I had amassed at the local photography store on a small packet of chemicals and some paper. Borrowing some old family negatives from the dusty closet shelf, a few pieces of glass, and a lamp, the only thing left was to wait for darkness, since light proofing a room required far to much patience for 10 year old to endure.
A few years later I procured a used Mamiya Sekor 1000 DTL, broken light meter and all, for a fraction of it’s original (from someone my ages perspective) mind numbing price. Many a good picture was taken with that piece, pretty much memorizing the little exposure chart in my head for outdoor shots, and bracketing like crazy for the precious indoor low light shots on the then blazing fast 400 ISO (wait, it was ASA then!) Tri-X Pan film. Eventually, an electronic flash was added to the ensemble, a slowly emerging functional darkroom, and two kittens who provided endless subject matter.
Around 1978, another milestone was achieved with the asset leveling purchase of a brand new Pentax MX, a camera that has served me well for over 40 years. I finally moved into the digital age in the mid aughties purchasing a Pentax K100D and most recently a Pentax KP, a decision primarily based on the fact that all my old lenses play with both cameras perfectly! Recently, I had the Pentax MX professionally rebuild and started shooting film again for nostalgia. No darkroom this round, I develop the film and head straight for the scanner. In fact, the menu background image for this site was shot on B&W film with the good old Pentax MX.
Karl