Photography

A friend said she hoped I would be posting some of my photographs on my blog. I'm not sure where to start. I have hundreds of photos. I have been taking pictures since I was a kid. I'm not saying how many years that's been.

Here is a photo of my brother and I on a family vacation. Note we are both holding cameras. Behind us is the Mackinac Bridge which connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. (At 5 miles long it is currently the third longest suspension bridge in the world. )

After many years of working in the social service field I decided to go back to school in photography to see if I could make it in the field. Within a couple years of that I was in a Cleveland Bicentennial photo exhibit at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It was put on by a group of women photographers, many of whom had their own photography business/studio. What a blast that experience was! Each of us also put photos and our bios in a time capsule at the Western Reserve Historical Society to be opened in 100 years. Within a short amount of time I also was published, with 4 photos in a coffee table book entitled "Cleveland: Continuing the Renaissance." More about those experiences later. I'll have to find the negatives and get some digitized. I also worked 5 years as a portrait photographer. I made a living at it, although not a great one. I really liked doing it but it takes a lot of energy.

Photography is a part of my job at The City Mission. I recently did a couple of photo shoots at Laura's Home, our program for homeless women and children. We needed some fresh photos for a new Laura's Home brochure. Once we have the brochure posted on our web site I'll post a link so you can see how my photographs were laid out in the brochure. Besides photographing women involved in various activities I also did a few family portraits. It was great fun and reminded me of my time working in the studio.

I am best at photographing people. Aside from some occasional portrait type photos I enjoy capturing people going about their daily lives, a photojournalistic approach. My camera has gotten me into some interesting places and circumstances. I once traveled on a oar freighter (from Lorain to Cleveland), chronicling the people and activities on the freighter. Believe it or not, it was a 10 hour trip, ending at LTV steel. That's a whole other story.

As I scan through some of my CD's looking for a photo to post here I decided on one of my favorite photos of my parents, Dad in his army jacket and Mom in her wedding suit, taken not quite 2 years ago. It was one of those instances of discussing the extra little roll around the waist and wondering if they can still get into something they wore decades ago. Note that the clothes still fit pretty good. You can see frames hanging all over the walls... lots of family photos and a few of my nature photos enlarged. Everyone's high school graduation photos hang together in one place around a grand old clock.

The first 35 mm camera I used was Dad's Argus. I used that in a photography class I took at OSU. Dad took lots of photos when we were growing up and on our vacations. He was pretty good at it, although he won't admit it. I treasure them all. He usually shot with slide film which is harder to do. There's very little room for error. If you don't get the exposure right, there's no fixing it later. I fondly remember all the slide shows he put together. Some of the slides now have been made in to prints and are displayed in the many photo books Dad has put together. By now he has run through several printers and probably hundreds of ink cartridges.

Is it any wonder that I'm so into photography?

Here I am being excited about something. Isn't it fun?