From The Beginning

In grade eleven, 1970, I signed up for 'photography class'  Seemed like an easy way to get some graduation credits as well as a chance to work with tools.  It was either that or Mr Dirkson's woodwork class.  Mr Rand, the quirky, likeable photography teacher gave us some Tri-x 400, an old Pentax 35mm, and then showed us how to develop film and make a print. Yup, we had more than one Bessler enlarger in a rather sizeable darkroom.  Huge washing sinks, big trays, and lots of Dektol Developer.   

I emerged from the dark room once and showed him an 8 X 10 printed on Ilford paper.  It was an old fishboat at a dock on the Fraser River.  He held it up, gave a few seconds to form a response and said only," By God Peter, that's a great photo!"  Handed it back to me and moved on.

I went out and bought a Konica Auto-Reflex T with a very sweet 50 mm f1.4 lens and took pictures more than I wrote essays or read books in grade 11 and 12.  Spent a lot of time in the darkroom in those days and learned mostly by figuring out what NOT to do.

with McDuff and the Konica in the 'Southlands' - a horsey neighbourhood in South Vancouver.

For the next 25 years I had an inconsistant relationship with my cameras.  I continued in the darkroom for a while after I moved to Squamish to start a career in teaching. Except, the dark room was in our upstairs bathroom and I couldn't afford a Bessler enlarger.  Prints hung from the shower curtain rod and if the kids needs to bathroom, they had to go downstairs.  And I didn't set it up that often with three kids and a wife.

I'd go for months without taking a picture and most of the stuff I did photograph was either my own small kids, or school events like the Christmas Concert or a sports day.  The photo albums started to pile up...

After the Konica manual wind, I got a fancy Konica FS-1, an auto-wind - cutting edge technology.  Next came the Contax 139 and 137, both wonderful SLR's that held Ziess lenses - a 50mm F1.8 and a 35mm.  

When manual focus cameras started to fade out, I let the camera sit for a long time, maybe a year or two, taken out only for a birthday party or Christmas Day.  Besides. I was too busy teaching, parenting, coaching and riding my bike to have any time for the camera.  

Eventually though, I bought an auto-focus, auto-wind Nikon (early 90's) and I was back in business.  Man it was so much easier to focus and just concentrate on composition.