The "The Art Of Photography! - Part I" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking for a greeting card in a  cabinet we have in our living room.  As I was pulling out a small box of cards, I also pulled out another folder filled with old photographs.  Started looking through the folder and within a few minutes was taken back to a time when photography was quite different that it is today.  Today we can take photos with our cellphone or digital camera and load the images onto our computer.  After altering or enhancing the images we can put them in a file for safe keeping until we are ready to use them.  Most everyone has done that from time to time, but how many have ever held an actual photograph that was printed on photographic paper in their hand to study the people in the photo or examine the composition of the photograph.  I'll bet that if you are under the age of ... let's say 30 years old, you probably have never taken a roll of film from a camera and taken it to a store to have it processed and made into prints. For many years I used an old  Polaroid camera to take photos and as the piece of film was developing, I would take a wooden tool and alter the image by moving the chemicals around between the layers of the print.  My prints looked as if I had painted the image rather than had taken it with a camera.  

I use my 35mm camera as well as a Polaroid

For years I sold my prints at a variety of stores in a few different states.  I still have all of those old Polaroids which I altered years ago and they still look as great as they did when I made them.  Neat to be able to hold them in my hand and admire them.  Have you ever taken a photograph with a camera that can yield an instant image as you watch?  

Altered Polaroid prints I made.  I had close to 100 of them.

I can still remember my parents taking photographs with their Kodak Brownie Camera and taking the roll of film that held the images to Darmstaetter's Store in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania to have the film developed and made into prints.  Carol and I still have several of the small yellow "albums" that hold the history of our families in them.  

All the images are in black and white!  When color film was introduced, my parents were reluctant to try it, but eventually did begin to take color images on film that was either made into prints or was kept as a "positive" or slide image.  I grew to love the art of photography so much that I eventually taught the art of taking and printing photographs in high school. 

You could take prints or slides.  They were different films.

How fulfilling it was to be able to teach something that I loved to do!  To watch the faces of my students as they developed their first black and white roll of film, take the resulting negatives and placing them in a photographic enlarger and project the image onto photographic paper in subdued light in the darkroom and then place the paper in a tray of developer to slowly see the image appear was ... well, priceless.  

This print was taken with Kodak color film which yielded negatives.

I can still visualize the excited faces as I type this sentence.  The art of photography really was priceless!  Today it is so different.  You take your phone, snap a photo, download the image to your computer screen and perhaps print a copy onto a piece of paper.  It no longer is an art.  It is only a procedure.  And, what do you do with that image after printing it?  You place it in a file and in many cases it is forgotten forever.  Will you ever be able to open a cabinet and pull out a box of old prints and remember what life was like when you were a child or perhaps just married or maybe on vacation with your family?  No...the image will be on a file somewhere and will be forgotten for eternity.  I know, because it has happened to me.  And, after typing this story, I felt it necessary to show you exactly what YOU are missing if all you do is what I just described.  Follow along tomorrow as I show you once again what photography used to be!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.