SELF PORTRAIT
This is one of the first images I ever made and printed.
And it was printed out in my father's old wood shed with a red light hanging over a rafter. Plus, I could only work during moonless nights, because there were no shades over the windows and the numerous cracks in the old wooden walls.
Now, that was primitive. But this hands-on experience was my introduction to my fine art photography which followed some years later.
The camera I used was an old Kodak Brownie 120 roll film with three aperture openings: small, medium and large.
The camera was made about the same time that the Titanic went to the bottom of the Atlantic, and the old wooden tripod was the best I had in terms of a tripod. That old box and tripod eventually fell apart.
Someone recently asked me about my bare feet. Well, in those days many young country boys looked forward to spring because that's when we put our shoes aside for the warm season. I attended a small country school during my first seven years, and many of us went to school in bare feet on the hot days. After a while, we weren't bothered by stones and other rough objects.
How times have changed.
jj
