Gallery 49-An Old Film Photo

This week for Gallery 49 at 52 Photos Project, we are sharing

AN OLD FILM PHOTO

Just after graduating from high school in 1978, my (then) boyfriend loaned me his Nikon Nikkormat 35 mm SLR film camera, which I did not really use much whatsoever, but which he somehow never regained possession of when we broke up a few years later! I used that camera (now considered a classic and one of the best cameras ever) when, on a "lark",  I enrolled in a beginners black and white photography course at St. Louis Community Collage at Forest Park, in 1982.  I learned how to develop film and print my images in the campus darkroom...and quickly fell in love with photography. I adored my teacher who was so supportive and encouraging, and proved to be the catalyst to open me up to my passion for capturing beauty and intrigue in my images, with much of her instruction focusing on the art of seeing (aka composition and emotional aspects of images). She was a great inspiration to me as I learned and grew as a photographer and I often think about how lucky I was to have such a close creative connection to my first photography mentor. She received special permission from the head of the art department to designate my last semester course as "independent study", because in 2 years time, I had taken all of the black and white classes the school had to offer! As a wonderful finale to my studies, I also ended up being awarded "Best In Show" in the Fine Arts category of the school's Annual Juried Art Department Student Exhibit, for a black and white photo I had taken on a trip to Mazatlan, Mexico, in 1983. I am sharing the photo for which I received this award, and which was also included in the 1984 issue of "Persona"- An Annual of Poetry, Prose, Art and Drama, by Current and Former Students of St. Louis Community College at Forest Park". I do have the original 8 x 10 image which I printed myself, but it is packed away in a box of memorabilia, in a hard to access space of our home. I recalled that the original publication resides among the books crowding our bistro bookshelf, so I just took a photo of the page it is printed on (which explains the texture effect of this photo!)

fun fact: for my first published photo, my name was spelled incorrectly, lol!

I still have boxes and boxes of printed photographs, both from film and digital, as well as some negatives and lots of photo discs. But I never set foot in a darkroom again after "graduating" from black and white photography courses in 1984, and probably could not develop film or print in a darkroom if you offered me a million dollars to do so! And although I "fought" going digital for some time, I admit that it has now been years since I have used a film camera. I still retain some "old school" skills of "what I see is what you see"...in other words, my use of cropping, enhancements and other methods of altering my images is non-existent to very minimal. I credit (my teacher) Katie Knight for instructing me in the fine art of composition, which I believe to be a crucial element in capturing a "good" photograph, and reducing the need for additional enhancement. 

(And YES,with 30 years of practice since then, I MOST DEFINITELY see SEVERAL things I would change in the composition of my photo, lol!)

Thanks for reading, hope your day is filled with wonderful images to behold!

Happy Me,Laurie.