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| Hello and Welcome to Keith’s Photography Page. I want to share my excitement and fascination about photography, in particular Black and White photography. I hope that you like what you see here and will be as excited as I am about photography. Just a little background information may help you understand my fascination with photography. It seems that I have always had a camera of one kind or another. My first camera was, apparently, a Diana. You can see a picture of me at age 5 with the Diana (not the little girl, that is my sister) on this page to the left. Then I had a string of cameras including an ancient Brownie box, several instamatics of which one had the replaceable bulbs (not flash-cubes), and an old fold-up Land Camera that collected dust. I remember as a kid I always was fascinated by the Medium Format and Large Format cameras that I had been exposed to throughout my young life (a story for another time). In High School one of the teachers had a darkroom in a storage area of the Chrorus Room. That was the beginning of my love for Black and White and printing your own stuff. The excitement was too much and I had to have a real camera. I lusted after a Nikon, but soon realized it was way out of my price range. I then settled for a Yaschica TL Electro-X. I was in heaven. I must have made the guy at the store crazy, coming in for several weeks and asking about different cameras and then finally (he probably said “Thank God”), I bought one. After that I would show up with rolls of film to be developed only and contact printed. I was being cheap. I soon discovered slide film and the "cheapness" of it. Kadachrome 64 was my favorite, but there was something to be said for the Ektachrome product. My God, I took sooooooooo many slides and still have most of them scattered through numerous boxes. When I went off to college, or rather to live in a college town, the dorm I lived in had a darkroom in the basement. I spent more hours there than I did in class. I continued to take photographs for several years after the college thing, until one day I came home and discovered that someone decided they needed my camera more than I did. I was devastated. For quite a few years after that I didn’t have a camera at all. About 11 years ago now I decided I needed a camera again, but was not in a position to buy a really good SLR. I bought an Olympus 35mm automatic film camera and ran rolls upon rolls of film through it until a friend loaned me his Olympus C-3000 digital. What a wonderful toy. So, I bought one and still use it for quick "point & shoot" stuff. I have taken Gigabytes of photos with that thing. Some have been lost due to computer crashes and carelessness, but most are still available. After having the digital for a number of years something kept nagging me. I yearned for a SLR to play with. I went to Ritz Cameras here in Phoenix, not knowing there was a better camera outlet and bought a Nikon N55. I finally owned a Nikon (hooray for me). I really didn't spend much time with it until recently, but now I was back into film after a long absence. When we bought our home it signaled another milestone in my photographic history. We now had a bathroom with loads of space that would (I suspected) make a great darkroom. I then did a really dumb thing and started looking at ebay for darkroom equipment. YIKES!!!!!! Let’s just say that in the two years of "ebaying" I have purchased and sold more camera equipment than most stores………. As a result, I have managed to acquire some nice gear and quite a number of the accessories to go along with it. I have also managed to get my nephew involved in film photography. I gave him a nice Mamiya M645 and several lenses, a 2x converter, and a tripod. My personal list of equipment is as follows: Mamiya 645 Pro with enough lenses and accessories to fill two camera cases The Nikon N55 Nikon FM – yes, the one I lusted over as a teenager Calumet 4x5 Monorail Omega C-760 Enlarger And of course, a Diana in the original box. So, I can do it all; take the photos, develop, and print in various sizes. I do, also, rely on a professional lab to produce the really large prints. My interests lie primarily in Black & White film using Medium and Large Format (4x5) equipment. When making photographs I lean towards old buildings, bridges, and landscape scenes always hoping there will be clouds in the sky (I have a strange fascination with clouds). I am still learning to use the 4x5 as it is a fairly recent acquisition, but I have taken quite a number of photos with the Medium Format Mamiya. I cut my teeth on Route 66 during a vacation last year. We drove as much of Old Route 66 as we could while traveling to Oklahoma. In August we took another vacation to drive the Western Arizona portion of Route 66. In three days I took twelve rolls of film and captured some great shots including my favorite, “Don’t Forget Winona”. You can see this photo on this page to the left and also on the photos page. Thanks for stopping by and as always; questions, comments, or just a note to say hi are welcome. Just send an email to keith (at) benandkeith (dot) com. |
2009 Keith Lane
All photos on this website copyrighted
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