I took this photo some time in ‘86 or so. Possibly before I went to Japan. I’ve slept a few thousand times since then. The photo is of my younger, not as good looking, brother. For some reason we took some time off from beating on each other to do this. I recall moving some lights around while he played with a chessboard. I’ve no clue instigated this little photo session, but I know at the time I was experimenting as much as I could. It was film and development was expensive, so I know I didn’t take many photos. I know I took far more time setting up the shots than I did taking them. Plus back then I had no way to develop/edit so the photo I took was the photo I got. What I would get would be a bit of a mystery. Not only was their no instant gratification of having the photo you just took, there wasn’t a way to see what you were completely doing. I could look through the lens to compose the shot and get an idea of the brightness or darkness of the image; the rest was up to my experience and knowledge of the lens, the film and the light.
This photo was taken on my very first SLR (single lens reflex camera) a Canon T70, released in 1984. I got in 1985 or early 1986. My mom got this for me through a Green-stamp program American Airlines was running for employees. To say the least, I was very lucky to get this camera. With that little guy my joy of photographer blossomed and would eventual open up possibilities in high school to work for the school paper and year book as of one their photo journalists. That allowed to learn the art & the science of developing both film and photos in a darkroom. A truly amazing experience. In college I would take an art photography class and learn more about darkroom work as well as how to roll my own film. That fun road of photography started in no small part to this photo.
It’s one of oldest SLR photos and one that I’ve always thought was particularly good, especially for a novice. While I don’t think of myself as extremely knowledgeable even today, I most certainly wasn’t at that time. No classes. No fundamentals. No YouTube. No Google. A total lack of tools beyond the library and a few books I bought to learn the fundementals of composing and light. As much as I enjoyed photography it was always an expensive hobby and limited me to how many photos I could take. How people learn photography is massively different today than it was back in 1986, especially if your budget was as limited as mine. While photography today is by no means an inexpensive hobby, every aspect of photography can be done with equipment most people already have in their pocket today. On top of that we have the instant gratification digital affords and the ability to immediate edit that very image.
If you have a young person in your life, give them the opportunity early to experiment and help them get the basic fundamentals, maybe in 35 years they will be reminiscing about one of their first good photos.
