digging through stacks of photographs my mother sent me, i came across a handful of printed black and white photos i had taken and printed, myself, in high school.

i loved photography. my very first camera was a canon ae-1 and i carried it everywhere with me the last couple years of high school. that’s the only time i’ve had pretty much unfettered access to a dark room.

the darkroom at shawnee mission south was one of my favorite places and i spent countless hours there.

in these days of lightroom, photoshop, and cameras built in to our smartphones, film photography is all but dead. for a time, i refused to give up my film cameras as a protest to a transforming art form. i got over it.

taken during an excursion to downtown kansas city in high school. while no big deal now, it felt exciting when i was 17.

taken in the open lawn behind shawnee mission south high school. this is becky, who was helping me with some random shots (rotary phone outside). at the time i thought it was a cool idea.

now i mostly just like it as a nice portrait of her.

for a long time, this staged photo (that’s me) was one of my favorite works. i still like it, but like the one of becky and the phone i wonder now why i thought it was such a great concept. that’s high school for you, i guess.