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I am an amateur photographer. I’m not a professional. Perhaps I never will be – but I hope that’s not true. I would like, one day, to call myself “professional” – but I am aware that it is a ways off.

I have been taking photographs since childhood when I first started using my father’s old Argus 35 mm camera, a Kodak 126 and a Polaroid (that I LOVED). I learned to develop photos (black and white) when I was in the photography club in junior high. I maintained that skill for a few years but interest waned when other things presented themselves (pubescent angst primary amongst them).

My father was always a photography nut. It seemed to me that he knew everything about it and was always the one chronicling family events and taking photos of the scenery and animals and things we would see on the many trips and hikes in the mountains of New Hampshire. I suppose then I got this interest from him. He doesn’t much take photographs anymore…and when he does it is with a p&s digital that doesn’t seem like it provides much satisfaction. I think he’d probably like to do more but I suppose work and life sometimes get in the way of nurturing the things we love…even those things we hold most treasured.

I don’t know that I would be much good in a darkroom right now (at least not in developing photos *bah-dum-dum*) but I intend to get back to those roots. I’ve identified the classes I want to take and hopefully by fall session our money will be free for me to invest in something that will bring me to the next level. In the meantime this project is part of my self-education and I like to think that it is helping me, even if in small ways.

Picking photography up again at this point in my life with such excitement and so much to look forward to in my development and connecting me to my past, is a great gift.