There are so many ways one could go with this theme.  But as soon as I saw black and white I immediately thought of this image.

I started dabbling in photography in 1998, with a Minolta SLR film camera.  Digital photography was still relatively new…and after my daughters were born,  I wanted to learn more so I started where a lot of photographers start:  I took a darkroom class.  We were told to photograph something, anything.  So of course I photographed my girls, who were 1 and 3 at the time.  And I will never forget when this image surfaced out of the chemicals.  It took my breath away.  It was the first time I realized, maybe I could do this.  Like, as in, an occupation.  Just maybe.

I had these images scanned in years ago and there they sat.  I did reduce the noise some and just did a tiny bit of face clean up…but truly, this was the image.  No photoshop tricks.  Just black and white film, nice lighting, and there you go.  Sometimes we get so caught up in this or that action, or texture, or process…we should all just pop in a roll of film sometime and get back to basics.  Good thing I still have that Minolta.

Check out the next photog: Seattle natural light photographer Kelly Baxter and see her take on this week’s theme!