I was a black and white film photographer for over 30 years.   I saw God's canvas through the view finder.  I would go anywhere I could with my camera and would use many rolls of film.  I wouldn't know how it turned out until I got home and developed the negative and then print it. 

The film would be printed on fiber-based paper.  If I wanted to hand paint it with transparent oils, I would mount the paper onto acid free mat board, treat the dried paper with turpentine in order to accept the transparent oils.  I rolled my own q-tips because they had to be small, using toothpicks. The oils would be pushed into the fiber and then lifted off.  This would be the technique for the entire painting.  I was layering the oils, one hue at a time. This process usually took about 40 hours to complete a finished painting.

I went into the digital age kicking and screaming.  I didn't want to give up my black and white darkroom but had to due to health issues.  I gave away the enlargers and all the equipment and bought my digital Nikon DSLR  camera, the same one I have today 15 years later.  

Using a digital camera, I had to learn a new way to develop the image.  I had to learn Photoshop.  The best book I used for this was "Photoshop for Dummies", and that described me to a T. It took me a long time to get used to it, but am so glad I did.  I can see immediately if I need to retake the picture and not worry about the cost.  You can take 1000 pictures digitally, but if you took them with 24 or 36 rolls of film......

Do I miss the black and white camera?  You bet, but a lot of suppliers were not producing the film and the chemicals were extremely expensive to ship because of OSHA.  I miss the time I spent in the darkroom watching the magic of an image come alive in the developer and follow it through to the stop and fix.  There was a certain joy seeing that.  

To learn more, please click here to contact me.  I love talking and answering questions.