I’m going to propose that we step into Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine.  ("Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" of the 1950’s and 60’s), and return to the last glory days for film photography, aka the 1970s.

I learned the photographic art decades ago, with film, in a darkroom…  These things still exist, like vinyl records, for purists, but photography now lives mostly in the digital world.  Digital photo editing (via Photoshop, or other image editing software) provides a range of editing tools and techniques that go far beyond the film/print process envelope.

 The fact that something can be done, does not mean that it should be done.

The darkroom was a great teacher – the old wet process mediums required conception and execution both before and after the “shot”.  

Digital photography changed everything.

We all have people who marked our lives - the teacher who saw something in us - a friend who believed in us...

I was a junior at SUNY.  I had taken every drawing class and printmaking class.  I had taken side trips into stained glass, and even wood working.  It was Fall and I needed an Art Elective.  She said to me, “How about Photography?  I took it in high school, and it was a lot of fun.”...

Before I found photography, I drew, perhaps following the seeds from my Uncle Frank’s illustrations.  I went to Catholic Schools until college.  There was very little money in the curriculum for art. This ended up being a plus.   I was driven to draw; in grade school I became known for my drawings of Snoopy characters, and an edgier fellow known as “Rat Fink”.  Kids even paid me a nickel for each drawing.our high school had one, single art class… taught by a very nice nun, with no teaching experience and potentially less artistic ability.  Once I got to college, I would find my way.  

As a very young child, I was aware of my Uncle Frank’s art.  His sisters kept everything Frank created.  He was a gifted illustrator.  He had been killed in the Pacific theater near the end of WWII.  From time to time, his sisters would show me his work.  The seeds of art in my life were planted...