jon_flanders
Well-known
My grandfather was an avid photographer. I don't know how or why he got into it. He was a mechanical engineer, a very good one. So I suppose that the techinical side of elegant machines interested him.
He mainly took family and vacation pictures. I have memories of his arrivals at our house, often with his latest camera. I still have one of his cameras, a Voightlander Bessamatic. The shutter is frozen on it, and I haven't been able to find anyone to fix it. Grimes sent it back, with apologies.
My grandfather was a good friend of Russell Porter, the polymath who among other things helped build the Mount Palomar telescope and founded a amateur telescope building society, Stellafane, that endures to this day. Perhaps this interest also inspired my grandfather's interest in photography. Later in life, he organized all of Porter's photographs of his Artic expeditions. All of my grandfathers own photographs are neatly organized and numbered in file drawers.
So I supposed I have some genetic quirk that tended me towards amateur photography. In college I learned how to use a darkroom as part of working on the school paper.
After college I bought an Olympus OM1 that served me well for many years. I got some black and white darkroom equipment which I learned to use in a number of small and squalid apartments as I moved around in my restless early years.
Of course I took lots of pictures of the children when they were young. Then other matters saw the camera mainly on the shelf, until the advent of digital photography. This revived some interest on my part. It was initially very cool to get pictures so quickly. Looking back at them, however, I am distressed at how poor they are compared to earlier pictures taken with the OM1.
Then my youngest son had to get a camera for a photography class. I found one on EBay. You can guess the rest.....................
I'm back taking photographs with film cameras, and enjoying it tremendously. Part of that enjoyment comes from this forum, where like minded souls can gather, talk and look at each other's work.
He mainly took family and vacation pictures. I have memories of his arrivals at our house, often with his latest camera. I still have one of his cameras, a Voightlander Bessamatic. The shutter is frozen on it, and I haven't been able to find anyone to fix it. Grimes sent it back, with apologies.
My grandfather was a good friend of Russell Porter, the polymath who among other things helped build the Mount Palomar telescope and founded a amateur telescope building society, Stellafane, that endures to this day. Perhaps this interest also inspired my grandfather's interest in photography. Later in life, he organized all of Porter's photographs of his Artic expeditions. All of my grandfathers own photographs are neatly organized and numbered in file drawers.
So I supposed I have some genetic quirk that tended me towards amateur photography. In college I learned how to use a darkroom as part of working on the school paper.
After college I bought an Olympus OM1 that served me well for many years. I got some black and white darkroom equipment which I learned to use in a number of small and squalid apartments as I moved around in my restless early years.
Of course I took lots of pictures of the children when they were young. Then other matters saw the camera mainly on the shelf, until the advent of digital photography. This revived some interest on my part. It was initially very cool to get pictures so quickly. Looking back at them, however, I am distressed at how poor they are compared to earlier pictures taken with the OM1.
Then my youngest son had to get a camera for a photography class. I found one on EBay. You can guess the rest.....................
I'm back taking photographs with film cameras, and enjoying it tremendously. Part of that enjoyment comes from this forum, where like minded souls can gather, talk and look at each other's work.
