History and Influences

I started my photographic journey in about the 6th grade, with a Polaroid camera and a pack of instant film. As a 7th grader, I was allowed to use the family 126 Kodak camera. I will certainly never forget buying my first real camera - a Pentax K1000.

I was a ninth grader at Arlington Catholic High School, and just across Mass Ave from the bus stop was (and still is) New England Photo. The owner was (not sure if still is) a man by the name of Ara. I believe he was Armenian. Extremely nice man, from whom, I purchased several cameras.

As an aside, I will always remember the day a friend of mine came back from New York City and had lost all of his equipment in a car break in lower Manhattan. He really loved the Canon AE-1 Program he had and wanted another one of the same. However, it had been several years since the AE-1 Program had been in production, and they were hard to come by. I thought that if anyone had one to sell, it would be Ara. So we went to the store and asked, and Ara said he thought he had one. Well, after a few minutes Ara came out of the back room, in what could be called High Procession, with an AE-1 Program, but not just any AE-1, a BLACK one! NEW IN THE BOX, and as I recall, it was a kit with the 50 mm lens all wrapped up together. My friend bought it in heartbeat, and I was proud to have helped him.

Back to my Pentax - I got the K1000 and a 50mm F2.0 lens from Ara, and my parents paid for it. I remember the whole kit and caboodle being $119.oo plus the tax, and my mother was extremely skeptical about what would happen with this major purchase. Well, that camera served me well. I learned so much from that box, I was in heaven. I took that thing with me everywhere, and Mom constantly reminded me of it's safety and make sure it did not get stolen.

So it is that I cannot remember when I upgraded that camera, it may have been when I returned to good old Woburn High. But I remember moving up to the Super Program, then the ME, then the ME Super, and that camera served me through my brief stay in college, and then beyond.

It was late 1987 that I started with the Woburn Daily Times newspaper group as a freeelance photographer and I purchased my first Nikon FILM camera. An FE. May have been an FE2. Nice camera, and it served me well.

I upgraded on a fairly regular basis and used a pair of F4s's for film cameras for all of my assignments.

So why the walk down memory lane? Well two reasons.

First - I have been asked to be the guest speaker at the upcoming Reading Art Association's Annual Dinner on June 11th, and I need something to speak about, so I have been going over some of my old stories and photos for some inspiration.

But moreso there was a small article in the NY Times newspaper today (6-3-08) that spoke of one of my earliest influences in photography (though I am not sure I should be proud of this - read on.)

As a photojournalist at the Woburn paper, several freelancers came and went and we all had to share assignments and mostly darkroom space. It was a constant struggle to schedule time to get developing and printing done.

One of the freelancers who spent some time with us, was a man called Steven Senne. He is now a bigtime photojournalist with the Associated Press based in Boston.

As he was leaving to move on in his career, he presented me with a book of photography and told me that I was like this man - Arthur Fellig - also known as WeeGee.

I was chasing fires and news nearly 24 hours a day in those days, cutting my teeth as they say and trying to get established in the photography business. WeeGee was the ultimate in spot news or crime photographers - based in New York City - the crime capitol of the world. He was in some persons eyes, the ultimate papparazzo also, as he photrographed the seedy side of NYC when not chasing ambulances. His moniker of WeeGee was a play on the title of the Ouija Board a game which supposedly predicted the future - WeeGee could seemingly predict where the crime was and oft times was there before the police.

Have a look at this article and try to remember it the next time you are out perusing a yard sale - you never know what you may find.

Old Photos Found at Yard Sale

It makes me wonder - if I lose a box of my photos, will some museum want my stuff long after my death?? :)