March 1, 2017: A trip to Disney World, my first vacation in nine years. I grudgingly heed my wife’s advice — Dan, take a walk with Katie. The work horse stops a moment to take the blinders off, and enjoy life for a moment or two, to admire the art deco architecture at Hollywood Studios. I stop dead in my tracks at The Darkroom...
March 1, 2017: Taking a photograph of The Darkroom at Disney World, I thought about that day at The Needham Times in 1994. Dave Rains sat at his office desk – just outside the darkroom – reading a newspaper. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw none other than David Handschuh from the NY Daily News on the cover...
June 8, 2013: I found a 1958 documentary about Ansel Adams, written by Nancy Newhall, and narrated by Beaumont Newhall. I studied Ansel’s two books, The Negative and The Print. He was a gifted piano player who considered the negative to be the score while the print was the performance...
Sept 6, 2011: Last night I read, The Camera and the Pencil or The Heliographic Art, by Marcus Aurelius Root, published in 1864. This is considered to be one of the first books on the history of photography. I learned that many of the early pioneers in photography lived on Staten Island and took the ferry over to York...
June 28, 2010: As I jot down notes to the Timothy O’Sullivan book by James D. Horan, I thought about the early pioneers of photography who lived on Staten Island: John William Draper, Chilton, Mathew Brady, and Tim. Horan describes a poignant scene: "one of the first news stories about photography ever published..."
June 8, 2013: Narrated by the son of Ansel Adams, Michael Adams illustrates the difference between straight printing and custom printing — the reason why Ansel Adams is equally known as a landscape artist and as a darkroom technician. He honed the negative and brought out his work in the darkroom...
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