When I was seven years old my father told me "You took it, you develop it." I have never sent black and white film in to be developed. In college I studied biology and photography. My student apartment room was a darkroom so I could avoid the overcrowded filthy university one and of course I also had a microscope and a bacteria incubator. I worked doing photography, microscopy (light, electron and confocal), computer programmer, web designer, animator, illustrator, safety officer and more. see About. All of this fed my curiosity and added to my abilities and understandings.

The thrill for me is in the seeing and learning a new technique. I love to figure things out. I live for the hunt. I get bored once I have figured it out. I have done: color, black and white, most alternative processes, toning, macro, light micro and electron microscopy, extreme wide angle to telescopic, lensless, 8mm to 8x10. I love large format silver negatives the best. Unfortunately, large format images on a web site are mere shadows, the quality and subtle nature of the toned and POP images have to be seen and held to be appreciated.

I tried wet plate but was turned off by the insane danger of the materials and the inconvenience of carrying a darkroom around with you. I want hand crafted, not dangerous. That led me to dry plate. I researched the old literature and consulted the bible of silver imaging The Theory of the Photographic Process. Everyone was trying for ever increasing film speed and full color sensitivity. I thought, wait a minute, I don’t want fast or panchromatic. If anything I wanted slow and limited sensitivity. The slowest emulsions were silver chloride based. I looked outside my office at the ocean and saw a bay of free chloride ready to use. It took me a year of futtzing and working out details. The Hollywood version always sounds better.

I am in love with the 1890s, but I am no romantic idealist. I deplore the racism, sexism, classism, plagues of yellow fever, cholera, typhoid, TB, etc., but this seems to have been the last time that a person could understand the materials and processes they used in their work. I prefer wood to metal, brass to aluminium, and film to CMOS chips. In my opinion, the downfall of the photographic art began with the commercialization of the dry plate process. Before then only the committed (as in insane?) did photography. You had to be your craft down to the bone level to do photography well. Once manufactured plates came out, any idiot could do photography. There was no longer a connection between deep knowledge and craft. Fast forward to the 21st century and we have a world filled with 'digiography'. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet for the ability to share ideas. I would never have found the Light Farm but for the internet. It is just that most is garbage and clutter.

Remember: Though the Age of the Extrovert is upon us it was the introverts that made it possible.

What is the best camera to use?

Answer: the one you have with you. If the camera is to heavy to carry or awkward to use (you do know your equipment right?), you will record the image of interest. Just as different artistic media spur creativity and excitement, so do different cameras. When you feel yourself getting stale and bored, switch it up. You can always go back.