Like most, if not all, serious photographers I have film (color and b&w negatives), color slides and digital files that reach back to the 1950s. I got my first SLR camera, a Topcon Uni, in the mid 1960s which came after my Kodak Brownie Box and my Kodak Brownie Starmite which was under my Christmas tree in an “Open Me First” box. If you know, you know. I think I have every negative I ever exposed still in my possession. I most certainly have every color slide I ever shot. I switched from shooting on negative film to positive slide film when I got a Nikon Nikkormat in 1971 or ’72. I was in Hampshire College in Amherst MA then and started to get more serious about photography. I was a natural science major at Hampshire and spent every spare minute I had outdoors and in the mountains. Summers were in Ocean City and photography on Assateague occasionally. Hampshire had a very robust photography major group then under the leadership of Jerome Liebling and Elaine Mays. I had a few friends who were in that group and their knowledge of all things photography both blew me away and intimidated me at the same time. Ken Burns, the documentary film maker, was in my class and thrived with the Liebling mentoring. I recall talking to a guy on my freshman (’71-’72) dorm floor who dreamed of going to France after graduation and working with Man Ray, who I had never heard of but my friend, Bob Blake, explained that Man Ray was an expatriate living in Paris creating surrealistic photography. He, Bob, did go on to a full career as a photographer, multi-media and performance artist, curator, educator and author. I talked to many other students in those days who were deep into photography and I learned a lot, but at the end of the day I mostly liked shooting landscapes and the natural world in good light. My photography is about recording a moment in time and place and good light to personally enjoy later and sometimes to share.
My love for photography never waned and I’m glad I have a deep ‘stock’ of photographs. I love looking back through old files and finding images I never did anything with, which is the case here. I shot this sunrise in 2021 but never did anything with it. If I’m not out shooting new stuff I search back through old files and I never know what I might stumble on. Could be a good 2026 calendar edition.
