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Like a lot of amateur photographers who had access to cameras while growing up, I started taking pictures when I was about 10 years old primarily using a 2 1/4 Rollicord and, later, a 4x5 Graflex. All B&W. My father was an occasional stringer for a now long-defunct newspaper so we had many different cameras around the house. He had a 35mm Konica camera but it wasn't until I was in my mid-teens before I played with that small format camera. And it was also the first time I shot color: Kodachrome 25. I vividly remember getting those first slides back from the processor...the colors certainly were nice, but that palette didn't captivate me the way grayscale did, and still does to this day. Many years later my wife bought me a Christmas present that would set the stage for most of my photographic endeavors that followed: the Portfolios of Ansel Adams. To say that I was awestruck by the images therein would be an understatement. It was at that point I knew the kind of images I wanted to make and that my photographic pursuit would require a large format camera. I was in my early twenties, we had just bought our first house, and I really didn't have extra money to spend on a camera outfit. After all, I needed to get everything! Around that time I somehow received Fred Picker's Zone VI Catalog in which he offered a complete 4x5 outfit. Just add film and I'd be set to go. I knew it was what I wanted, but how was I going to get the money? I took on a part-time job (selling cameras, no less) and after about 8 months I ordered the outfit from Fred. What an exciting day it was when it arrived...I was thrilled! I still own that camera and use it occasionally. Over the years I have studied with a few photographers--John Sexton, Dick Arentz, Fred Picker, and Alain Briot--but, I consider myself primarily self-taught. Up until 2000, I worked strictly with film cameras--medium and large format--and produced prints in the wet darkroom. A move across the country that year caused me to lose my darkroom and we had no place in the new house to build one. I had to figure out how I was going to produce prints and, after a couple of long phone conversations with George DeWolfe, I moved out of the dark and began working digitally, albiet a hybrid solution whereby I was shooting film and scanning into the computer. It's hard to believe now, but a mere seven years ago digital processes were in their infancy. Digital B&W printing certainly was! It has been a somewhat arduous trip to get to where I am today, but I truly believe that I can now produce inkjet prints that at minumum equal my silver gelatin prints and can even exceed them. The precise control available in Photoshop when compared to darkroom work is certainly a tremendous help in realizing one's vision. And, with today's printers, RIPs and/or Advanced B&W driver settings, it's hard for me to remember back to when I mixed my own inks! Today, I shoot both film and digital and have added the craft of platinum printing my images. It's a very exciting time to be a photographer and I look forward to experiencing what's yet to come! Alan Huntley |