My first real camera was a Canon AE-1 with a 35mm lens. I still own it and the ProMaster telephoto and 28mm wide angle lenses later purchased for it. Then, I shot almost exclusively B&W Ilford film that I bought in bulk and rolled. I developed it in my own makeshift darkroom in one bay of our double car garage in Bay Valley, Michigan. Three walls of that darkroom were opaque blue shower curtains that were sufficient to keep out whatever light leaked around the worn weather-stripping of the bay doors. Fifteen and crazy about photography, on one of those strange high school personality tests, I listed my intention to be a photojournalist. Clueless.
My junior year in high school I was the assistant editor of our yearbook and a staff photographer for the school newspaper. Other than spending an inordinate amount of time fucking around in our school’s darkroom, my only recollection of that photojournalistic experience was the critique by the newspaper’s faculty adviser of one of my first assignments. My assignment was to take headshots of three students who had just received some scholastic honor. Simple enough, except I gave no thought to the three photos as a whole and proceeded to take what our advisor called “Goldilocks and The Three Bears.” One had a too dark background. One had a too light background. And one was just right. My three photos ran on the front page. The Staff laughed and I blushed.
After graduation, I left Michigan and my family to attend the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, South Carolina. A good journalism school, I have a BA in journalism, and a three hour drive from Hilton Head Island, where my parents vacationed. I continued to shoot, but my darkroom days were limited to school breaks. First semester of my sophomore year, just a month after my father had retired due to a chronic illness and my parents had moved to Hilton Head, my father unexpectedly died. Our new house had only one large garage bay, but the summer between my sophomore and junior years my mother allowed me to build a darkroom in the garage so long as her car would still fit. This one had 2×4 studded walls, wired lights and outlets and even an exhaust fan. All built my me. It even passed code enforcement when unbeknownst to me or my mother, the building inspector, tipped off by an anonymous neighbor, appeared for an inspection. I was quite proud when he passed it and then was incredulous when he learned I had built and wired it myself. I spent many weekends home from college, summers, and the the year I took off after graduation and before law school shooting and developing B&W photos. Then law school came and my photographic days faded away. The darkroom became a storage closet until my mother sold the house while I was in Richmond slaving away as an associate in a large law firm. When my mother moved out I packed up my darkroom and never unpacked it. Enlarger, safe lights, chemical trays and everything else is currently in the basement of my house, untouched for over 33 years. I never saw the age of digital coming. If I had, I would now be ensconced on a Caribbean island with no cares.
Never one to use fewer words when more will do, I’m a litigator, I’ve come to my point. I never lost my infatuation with cameras. I have owned a number of decent digital cameras through the years. But they were simply necessary tools for random holiday or vacation photos. There is a longer story here, but for now it is I bought my first Leica, a Q, a few weeks ago and like some residual opioid, my infatuation with photography was reignited. So much so, that after just a week with the Q I returned it for a full refund (thank you B&H) and bought a Leica SL. I’ve been shooting like crazy and relearning old mistakes.
Early on a Friday morning, before work, SL in tow, I went walking and snapped some photos. Along the Potomac there was a solitary rower in his skull. Unlike with film, my SL’s EV showed me each shot. No magic. It was then that the critique by my newspaper advisor popped into my head. I was taking photos without looking outside the lens. I immediately stopped, let my camera hang off my shoulder and then looked at the whole scene. It was then that I saw the scene I should be trying to capture.
What follows is the progression of my shots:
And here are the three that followed after I dropped my camera from my face and used my own two eyes. Through the lens I would have missed the rower heading for the rising sun’s watermark. That was the photo.