I have had some recent time away from shooting .The short period of three weeks doesn’t compare to the years that spanned 1983 through 2008. I have a go back to when the real magic for me began. The journey really started in the middle sixties. My father would invite his friends over for a typical fifties-sixties cocktail party and dinner. The conclusion of the evening was a slide show followed with cigars, cigarettes and a liquor. The visual fare typically included slides shot during his travels in Europe mainly in west Berlin with my mother to be and his Army buddies.
I viewed so many slide shows before I became a teenager that I could tell you what image was the next in the continually growing inventory of carousels and trays of slides. My father would prepare several days in advance for his party. The Kodak projector would come out. He would begin the review his slides. The routine was typically just going through to make sure none of the cardboard film holders came apart. He would at times stop during the review and change the order of a particular tray or change out one image for another. The process sometimes would consume several evenings. The slide shows weren’t the catalyst for my interest in photography though. (more…)