I’ll go back in my drives tomorrow and pull a few of my first images from 1953. I got ahold of my mothers Ansco 620 box camera and made my first images. Actually they weren’t all that bad.
Like Erik my moms camera eventually wound up in pieces. I was just too curious about what made things work but not so good at putting them back together again.
For those interested, verichrome film in those days was orthochromatic not panchromatic and could be processed under a red safelight. In the late 50’s I didn’t realize it had changes and ruined a roll of prized images by trying to tray process my 127 film under a red safelight.
I learned early on that I could make money by selling my photography. My 6th grade English teacher paid my $5 to photograph her son with his accordion. They came out great and I still have the negs.
In high school I photographed rock bands and sold photos to them. I had a new Pacemaker Crown Graphic by then and used that plus borrowing my dads Rollei.
A group called The Soul Survivors hired me to photograph them at the train station. I wasn’t old enough to drive and had to get my dad to drive me to the job. I took my dads Rollei and 1 roll of film and got 12 out of 12 keepers. I truly didn’t know I didn’t know enough and they came out.
Here are 6 of the shots from around 1963.
