Most images here are scans of silver gelatin prints, mostly from 35 mm film (a few from 120), that I developed in one of the darkrooms at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. (Well, now it’s Pittsburgh Center for Arts and Media, but it will always be Filmmakers to me.) After 2020 (when the coronavirus pandemic put the kibosh on darkroom visits), some posts will be from scanned negatives. I’m rolling with it.

A quick note about cameras, about which I know not much.

The camera that took the photo below is a Panasonic Lumix.  Which is a very good digital point-and-shoot, fits in your pocket, and has enough settings that you feel sort of like a photographer.  But it doesn’t take photographs — at least what I mean by photographs.  It doesn’t write with light.  It makes pictures out of ones and zeroes. And that’s just not much fun.

The rest of the gang:

From left to right: a Lomo (there’s a whole society of people crazy about the Lomo, but mostly it just gives me agita), a Polaroid Spectra (sigh), a Minolta Maxxum 7000, and, for medium-format film, a Holga.   Most of the photographs on this site were taken with the Minolta.  Why this camera?  Because nobody ever tried to sell me any other kind for rent money.  But you can get one now for about thirty dollars, and I still recommend it, even if it’s heavy and noisy.  Not so great for capturing solemn moments in church, good if your band wants to launch into “Girls on Film.”