In 1978, we moved again--this time, to Athens, Greece. Not much wildlife. But lots of great artifacts. As in South Africa, in Greece I had no darkroom access. So it was all color print film, commercially developed, and the photos stuck in an album. Pretty frustrating, considering the control I previously had with darkroom access. Also, during this whole South Africa/Greece period, I developed a very bad habit that took almost ten years to break: photography was something to do overseas--while living there, or while on vacation in Switzerland or Belgium, etc. The interesting subjects were overseas. When I came back to the U.S., the cameras got put away--as if there was nothing interesting to photograph--until the next overseas vacation.
In college (back in So Cal), I finally had darkroom access again! No college classes in photography, I just used the "communal" darkroom. Also, through college and grad school, I spent four years working at a large communications company. I worked in the "camera department" there, mostly at nights. It invovled making halftones for ads, photographing book pages onto large sheets of film to use to make plates for the presses, etc. This was frustrating because it was low-quality work; because it wasn't "black and white" but true high contrast "black or white." But shooting 35 mm black and white negatives and then trying my hardest to use the pre-press equipment to make poster-sized enlargements probably had the biggest affect on my personal "style", which seems to be high contrast, abstract, bold composition as opposed to ultra-sharp Ansel Adams Zone System-like photographs, etc.
One of my friends at that job, Dan Duquette--who was a photographer, and a student of photography--taught me a little about the history of photography and some of the important historical figures. Around this same time I really latched on to the work of Edward Weston when introduced to his work in a college art class, and my appreciation for his work continues to this day. After that, the years passed quickly. Working, working, working. Taking photographs now and then, using two Nikon SLRs (an FG and an EM--nothing too fancy). In the back of my mind was always this plan: "some day, when I retire and have the time and money, I'm going to buy a 4 by 5 view camera, build my own darkroom, and finally take the pictures I always wanted to take but never could!"
[ photograph above: Hovercraft, Budapest, Hungary, 1979 ]
