My Relationship with Photography

I've had a long personal history with photography but recently I think I've finally come to understand it. The purchase of a new quality digital camera has made me believe I could finally have some mastery over the craft of capturing light. My new digital camera has given me so many controls over how an image is captured compared to my past forays with 35 mm, 4 x 5 view cameras and alternative processes.

I see it as a long journey of discovery, trial and error, false starts and absolute stops. College interrupted any arts development by interjecting getting a "real job" as the main focus of my life. I studied business but when I had a chance I'd steal off to the library and flip through the large collection of photography books. I studied all the masters, flipping page by page and especially liked Duane Micheals and William Wegman, I guess I liked the humor. I subscribed to Aperture and went to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston to see the Mapplethorpe exhibit.

Then work, getting a pay check and paying off student loans became a priority. A time of unemployment found me developing film in our newlywed apartment in Lowell, MA. After sending off resumes I'd clean out the closet and set up my darkroom and then later put everything away before my wife came home from work. Later I bought a vintage press camera off the AOL bulletin boards, in this early version of Ebay style trading. I lugged this heavy camera and wooden tripod around developing one or two images in a photography session. My naturally disorganized nature really was not conclusive trying to be the next Ansel Adams.

First came marriage then came a cradle and my focus was on a video camera and point and shoot cameras as well as the implosion of the computer magazine market and next the Dot Com bubble - I was popped out of both of these bubbles in a short amount of time and then 911 happened. It seemed like a good time to get away from civilizations so we headed up to an island off the coast of Maine. It would seem that this beautiful landscape would have sparked my creative juices but there was so much to do, volunteering at school, running my website (www.fishboy.com) and just trying to survive in this strange new land. I suppose all of this time allowed my brain to store images, ideas and themes that now I am ready to unleash.