Table of Contents
DEEP ARCHIVE 1
My father was an avid amateur photographer. His job involved extensive travel throughout the western United States where he photographed the landscape in Kodachrome. My brother also dabbled in photography, and even had a darkroom of sorts. Once after my brother moved out of the house I discovered his setup and decided to give it a try. He had trays, a contact printer and some foil packets of chemicals. Even though I was using a blue light bulb as a safelight, I did get some results. I was able to make contact prints from my Brownie camera negatives. Shortly after I started making prints there was a solar eclipse, so I decided I would try to photograph it by taping some photographic paper inside of my camera. The eclipse lasted long enough that I was able to try some exposures, run upstairs and develop the paper, then come back down and try again. Naturally the results were in negative, but it did work. Over time my darkroom became more capable, especially after I bought an inexpensive Federal enlarger. I had a job doing delivery for a pharmacy. They had an Argus C3 camera just like my father's in the display case that had not sold for some time. The owner agreed to sell it to me for $15. The quality of my photographs and my enthusiasm went way up.
I was getting ready to start college at Portland State University. My girlfriend’s best friend’s boyfriend had already finished one year there and was deeply involved in photography and publications. He invited me to join the photographers on yearbook staff. As it turned out this was no typical group of your book photographers. Most were extremely talented and professional. Two of them had just taken a summer workshop with W. Eugene Smith. I also spent some time working on the newspaper. Photography and working on publications were my primary activity in college and set the stage for much of what I would do in the future.
The pictures that appear in Deep Archive 1 were made during the five years I was at Portland State University. Some of the pictures are records of my friends and some were made on assignment for the publications.
You can buy a book contain gin many of these pictures here.
Table of Contents