fotolotti Pictures bring us closer

Photography took hold of me before color film, before 35-millimeter cameras and even before I could afford a real camera of my own. When I was a teenager some photo studios still used glass plates, some even used wet glass plates, and daguerreotypes and tintypes were still within our father's memory. Someone gave me a packet of small squares of proof paper, paper coated with a light sensitive emulsion which would turn reddish brown upon exposure to sunlight. Later, I learned that photo studios would use a similar paper, which they would expose behind a negative in a proofing frame, to produce a proof of a picture they had taken. The studio would offer to their customers a few different proofs, from which the customers could select images that they wished to order.

I followed the instructions printed on the outside of the black paper lined envelope that contained my few sheets of magic paper. By laying any object on the paper surface before exposing it to the sun, I would, within minutes, produce a white shadow-like image on the browned piece of paper. And, if that were not enough, a partly translucent object with different thicknesses would result in an almost lifelike image: A leaf! A butterfly wing! A feather! How could I have not been hooked on producing these images? I added a pack of the magic paper to my treasured chemistry set, my erector set and my toy microscope.

I learned quickly, to my dismay, that the picture image on my proof paper soon darkened to blend into the background's brown and red-purplish color, if I left it unprotected from light. The picture soon disappeared like the memory of an uneventful day. But my memory of that first image, appearing magically on photosensitive paper, remains with me today.

Times were "tough" back then, as we like to say, referring to the economic times, but it wasn't long before I earned the money to buy my first camera. It was a Box Brownie, and it cost one dollar. It used number 120 black and white roll film. That was my first investment in photography. And my investment grew quickly when, to satisfy my desire to develop my own film and print my own pictures, I had to equip a makeshift darkroom. I learned to work to earn money. Summertime soon brought me a chance to bunch radishes and green onions at nearby truck farms. Errands that I had been avoiding I now found to be a source of income from appreciative relatives and neighbors, but seldom from parents. It took a lot of work in order to earn the developing trays, a safelight, a measuring flask and the chemicals. I had to have one kind of developer for film and a different one for the paper prints. And I needed acetic acid in the water used to stop development. And “hypo” that was used to dissolve out the silver salts which had not been reduced to the metallic silver by the developer. This last, the sodium hyposulphite, was called the “fixing solution” since it made the image permanent. My erector set and chemistry set became idle.

And that was before I decided that I wanted an enlarger, a real contact printer, a print washer and a new camera ... a 35 millimeter camera like the cameras Life Magazine photographers were beginning to use. I couldn't ever afford a Leica like theirs, but in a few years, while I was still in high school, I was able to purchase an Argus miniature camera. It was no Leica, but at least it was a 35mm!

There was no color film then, and the black and white film was colorblind. The film was not sensitive to red, but very sensitive to blue light. It made for some quite unrealistic black and white pictures where one had to compensate for things like: red lipstick that was represented by black lips, blue skies that were white, and heavily rouged cheeks made for gray sunken cheeks that added years to ones image. Serious photographers adjusted for these problems as best they could by using colored filters in front of camera lenses to darken skies, and did not hesitate to insist that painted ladies remove cosmetics before their portrait was taken. It was not long before a panchromatic film became available. It was sensitive to more colors, particularly in the orange- yellow part of the spectrum. It didn't solve all the problems, but it made the use of more filters possible. Pictures began to exhibit skies with clouds.

There was a downside to the new film. One could no longer use the fairly bright red safelight in the darkroom to visually monitor the film developing process. Safelights for the purpose were changed to a dark green, and could be used only cautiously at a distance and then for only a short period. It was often easier to forgo safelight use and learn to develop film in total darkness, relying on time and temperature to control its development.

I was now a photographer. And I had learned that working had a purpose.