Bus Ride with iPhone

I have a bit of quiet time and thought I’d get started.

Before I tackle the issues raised I feel that I ought to discuss the history of my involvement with photography. At no time have I been a commercial photographer.
I received my first camera when I was a young teenager in the early ‘50’s. It was an Agfa Box camera. My photography heroes were, and still are, W. Eugene Smith and David Douglas Duncan. Although reporters and journalists often/mostly used cameras like the Speed Graphic, Smith and Duncan used Leicas and the new Japanese 35mm rangefinder and SLR cameras.
On my high school yearbook staff we were given Speed Graphics. My Uncle had given me a Contaflex SLR, and I tried to sneak that in on the assignments I was given, my results weren’t particularly impressive. For one thing, I kept insisting on ‘pushing’ my film, Kodak Tri-X, too much.
I didn’t really settle down and produce useable work till the early 1980’s when I started freelance writing and photographing for sailing magazines.
While I had started developing and printing my own film when on the high school yearbook staff, I didn’t have my own darkroom till decades later, and took my film to commercial labs.
My cameras were Fuji FX-3’s, relatively cheap, and most importantly, they took Zeiss lenses.
In the 1980’s my wife decided to go to grad school, and I followed her to university and was able to be allowed to take photo courses offered by the Art Department, with full access to the darkroom facilities. When my wife received her degree, we went back home and I had learned enough to build my own darkroom.
We lived in a very small Gulf island community on Florida’s west coast. Commercial fishing, crabbing and oystering were the traditional occupations in town.
I was too reticent to approach the gruff looking local fisherman for permission to photography them, but the place was interesting enough to make me push myself to start photographing. Gradually I realized that a well printed black and white photo had great appeal among the local population and was a respected item.
This is a point that is basically lost today and is a reason why photography isn’t what it used to be, and in my opinion never will be again, because ever changing developments in technology keep shifting the ‘value’ an image possesses.
I will leave it at this for now and hope to continue, after the storm passes, if we are fortunate enough to make it through it safely.

Best, Chris to

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Not a hurricane yet.

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