I had a plan….  I studied.  I figured I would spend my time in the company of Florentine Masters.  Little did I know that on a fateful day, I would came across a small boy in a park holding a hand-grenade.  The course was Women Photographers in the Twentieth Century; Julia Margaret Cameron, Jessie Tarbox Beals, Lee Miller, Margaret Bourke-White, Lisette Model through to Diane Arbus.

Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962 changed everything.  I moved from feeble attempts at re-making postcards, to trusting others around me to make the postcards, so that I could focus on other things.  More interesting things, whether somewhere for the first time, or maybe the 31st time.

I don’t own a flash, a tripod, or filters. I use only one type of black and white film, one speed, one 50 mm lens, and an old M6 body.  I make photographs that reflect my curiosity, my history, and of-course all the photographers that have inspired me over the years. No one stands alone.

I am a great admirer of Gianni Berengo-Gardin, the incredible, yet ever so humble Italian photographer.  He stamps all his photographs with a green stamp that reads: Vera Fotografia (genuine photograph), confirming that what is in the photograph is what was in front of him when he made the photograph using an analog camera and film. His photographs are printed in a darkroom on fiber paper from the original negative with no digital manipulation of any kind.  Amen to that!

 

camera.  film.  darkroom.  old school.

.Vera Fotografia.

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