The Family
My first exposures were made using a box camera with 120 film during the mid 40’s in rural Pennsylvania. Family photos such as shown here. Mom, Grandma, Grandpa and her sisters. I was eight years old and saved my allowance. I cut lawns with a push lawnmower, gas mowers were far in the future. I cut wood, and did any other chores in order to earn enough money to buy a roll of film. Film came from Kodak and was expensive. Paper came from Kodak and was expensive. Chemicals came from Kodak and were expensive.
My film was processed in the bathroom after the others had gone to bed. A dish was set out with the developer in it on the toilet seat, another with a stop bath on the back of the toilet. A bowl with the fixer was in the bathtub. The lights were turned off and the bathroom door was blocked with the back of a tilted chair. A towel on the floor by the door made sure no one would let light sneak into my small space. My timer was a noisy clock that ticked off seconds. Tick, one second. tick, 2 seconds and so on. The expensive film was unrolled and removed from it’s paper and lowered into the the developer, first one end, then it was pulled up through the liquid to get the entire strip wet. After that the film went back and forth through the developer as I counted ticks. Right hand in the air, left hand lowered, then left hand in the air while the right hand was lowered. After the right number of ticks, it was transfered to the stop bath on the toilet back for the next tick counts. Then into the fixer for a while and the lights turned on. There in all it’s glory was what my my weeks worth of chores bought me. A strip of twelve 2 1/4 inch square negatives. After fixing and washing that strip was hung from the towel rack to dry. A happy boy on a Friday night anticipating Saturday night while he carefully returned his expensive chemicals to their storage jars. That would be when after the others had gone to bed he could print.
Printing was how my pictures came to life. The same bathroom with a small red bulb on the end of an extension cord. A dish with paper developer, stop and fixer all in the bathtub this time. The toilet seat was my printing station, where while under the red light, the film which had now been cut into sections of three negatives to a strip was positioned over the sheet of paper 3 1/2 by 5 inches in size. A clean sheet of glass laid over the the two pieces to form a sandwich and the bathroom light turned on for the exposure. After turning off the lights, the paper went to the developer where it was worked by a warm young hand to bring up the bright underexposed spots. Laid on a towel to dry overnight and Sunday I could show off my work. The pride I felt from those photo’s was unmatched, even in later years when my large gorgeously mounted photos were hanging in art institutes with best of show ribbons, didn’t bring the same feelings of accomplishment those small 2 1/4 inch square images brought back then. At my tender age of 8, and near the end of WWII, I was the family photographer exercising full control over my “art.”.
Moving on
Artistic bent.
As the family photographer, I had many subjects, and loved taking pictures of people. The family was wide spread around in the Pennsylvania hometown. Relatives at every turn. Many peers and contemporaries to photograph. Twelve years old and I already knew everything, had already achieved what a small town boy would consider great success. But the hills of Pennsylvania suffered one major problem. There was no work. The GI’s who fought the war were coming back to an impoverished small hill town area still not recovered from the depression. In Detroit the car manufacturers were running full speed ahead to get caught with the lack of car production during the war years. Every one wanted a car. Dad wanted a job. We moved to Detroit’s downriver area. But no family. No friends. Only strangers all around me, and worse yet, no income to buy things. No family and friends to do chores for in order to earn money. I knew none of the new neighbors. They were just like me, imports to a strange land, pulled out of comfortable surrounds and planted in the big city.
My camera equipment had advanced a bit over the years. I now had a second hand folding Kodak with a cloth bellows and the ability to range focus. Shutter speeds and f:stops. But in Michigan, my subjects had to change. Taking pictures of strangers in a strange land wasn’t advisable. Popular Photograhy introduced me to Edward Weston’s images. Ansel Adams was gaining notariety. Deciding artistic photography was the place to be, my interest turned to long tonal range and emulating their compositions. At thirteen years old I obtained working papers from the local school system, and got my first real job. A paper boy and three evenings a week, hall monitor at the school for after school functions. This afforded me the funds to buy a real enlarger. A Solar model and set up a basement darkroom. But the school activities along with emerging genetic urges of a teenage boy were starting to take sway. Picture taking waned for some time. The parents were living the good life, and the boy was left to fend for himself. The paths he took from there were varied, and not photo directed. That was the time when he learned about people, and how to influence future subject matter with a bit of charm.