My first exposure to photography was when I was a small boy.  My mom gave me a Kodak Baby Brownie and a roll of black and white film.

That was the beginning. After a few years of playing with the old Baby Brownie and starting to gain more interest in photography my next door neighbor Tags ,Terry Hargreave, advanced me to the next level by teaching me the basics of photography and giving me a well used Voigtlander folding camera from the 1940's.  It shot 120 roll film. 

I then started to visit the local camera shop and started to ask question on how to develop and print pictures.  Well I left dreaming about a do it yourself processing kit.  After saving my lawn mowing money for a month I headed up to Kiggens Camera Store to pick up my supplies.

My neighbor Jim Darras across the street allowed me to use a room in their basement (an old coal bin) to set up a darkroom.  I could only make contact print as an enlarger was to expensive and out of the question.  After attempting this process a dozen or so times with very little success my processing was turned over to the corner drugstore.  I was never satisfied with the quality of the drugstore prints and the lack of creative control over my photos and I always thought of having a real darkroom!

After being spotted by the high school yearbook photographer Gary Lane while I was in the eighth grade I was introduced to the high school darkroom.  This was a major advancement from the old coal bin.  But disaster struck when the sewer pipes that ran along the ceiling of the darkroom was severely damaged when several M-80 firecrackers were flushed down the toilets! The high school darkroom was doomed to become a storage unit.

From that disaster we moved to my buddies darkroom that had just been built in his parents basement. This was where I really learned how to develop negatives and print photos.  This continued on until my friend graduated high school. From that point I was on my own.

After my friend graduation I was able to build my own darkroom in my grandmothers basement. At that point I was doing all the high school yearbook  photography along with my own personal work.  Then along came a period of getting married and bringing up s family.  After a twenty year absence I happened to pick up a used Nikkormat at a garage and the passion erupted again for photography. 

Now that I started shooting film again, the new kid on the block was Digital Photography! After clinging to my safe haven of film photography for several years longer and watching the digital population move into direct quality competition of the film media, I jumped off with them.  From my first DSLR , a NIKON D100 and until my D5 along with Adobe CC, I seldom look back except to remember my early days of the coal bin darkroom and the smell of developers, acetic acid and fixers! And the memories of those who helped me during my very early years of photography. Thank you Gary, Tags and Jim.