The "LDub's Photography Study Guide" Story

It was an ordinary day. I had just made copies of my study guide for my classes. Many years ago I made my own photography study guide for the course I taught in black and white darkroom photography. For four or five years the school purchased study guides for me, but I decided that I could make one better than the one that I was using. Too many of the units in the purchased study guide were either obsolete or of little importance in my class on black and white photography. I spent an entire summer writing my study guide. When the family traveled to the Chesapeake Bay for a two week vacation, I took my writing with me and enjoyed the two weeks writing by the water. Units such as photography history, the camera, lenses, accessories, film, exposure control, composition, film processing, photographic paper, printing and finishing were all chapters in my study guide. I also added units on alternate approaches, techniques, processes and materials to the guide. Most of these were not found in books you could purchase. I also added a unit on photo critique with an extensive glossary in the back of the guide. It was a very thorough and comprehensive study guide. After I was finished and was satisfied with the result, I copied it back-to-back on the copier, punched holes in it and put it in three-ring binders for the students. I now had exactly what I wanted to cover during the year and in the order that I wanted to cover the material. It took me a few years before I worked out all the bugs and found all the misspellings, but I pretty much used the book until I retired. The chairman of the Industrial Arts Department thought I should have the book published, but since I had used charts and artists renderings that I had found in other books, I couldn't do it. Against copyright laws. Some of the charts I had in the guide could be used for determining what to set your camera to for exposures in hard to meter situations. If using Tri-X film, set your camera to 1/4 sec. at f/2 for candle lighted close-ups. If using Tri-X and you want to take photos of lightning, set your camera on f/11 and keep the shutter open for one or two streaks. And the list went on and on. For years I would have former students tell me they still had some of the charts in their camera bags and still use them. The course was as rewarding to me as it was to them. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - charts are some of the more than 50 that appeared in my photography study guide.