For me, it begins again.

Why?

So I'm approaching my mid-life crisis...maybe. Hopefully if that's what this is, it'll be more of a 1/3 life crisis, and that I'll be around a bit longer. I guess it doesn't have to be either of those, and it's just a desire to reinvigorate this hobby that I've had for so long. I have this feeling of needing to do something for myself, and accomplish something. I'm re-engaging my hobby of photography.

Anyway, you may have wondered "why the strange title" (of the blog)? Or you may have a good guess at what it means and you're saying..."you think your soooo original". I'll explain. The "Silver" in the title refers to a key component in the discovery/invention of photography, silver halide. It was the primary element or substance that made photography (at least black and white photography) possible. (Read more about silver halide here). In short it's a form of silver that is light sensitive, and when exposed to light, it turns black. So early photographers discovered the nature of this element, and found that putting it onto glass, metal or paper, could then be exposed to light and could show an image that it had been exposed to. That was about the shortest most poor description of photography ever. Here's a brief history of photography.

Anyway to continue the explanation of the blog title. We got the word silver out of the way, and I just realized I went backwords on explaining these words. Anyway, the word digital in the title of course refers to our modern era of digital photography. So it's a uniting of the old school component silver, the original "vehicle" of photography, with the newness and almost exhausted term digital, so Digital Silver...wow, amazing hunh? Great.

So, I really love the instantaneus nature of digital cameras, yet still appreciate and hold much respect for the era of film and the roots of this art. So this will be a place that I can post my pics, and rant, and teach, and learn, and so on, and so on.

Beginning with genes...

I don't know how to really trace the beginnings of this love that I have, but it must be genetic. My grandfather on my mother's side was into photography and videography/film. I've seen a lot of photographs and reels of film that he's taken. Grandpa was really prolific in how many photos and shots he's taken through the years. He recorded a pretty impressive history of the family in photos, 8mm film and video.

Grandpa on the couch "chewing" over the latest info in photography magazine.
At this point in time, grandpa was developing and enlarging his own photo prints.

One of the first personal vhs video camera's I had ever seen was owned by grandpa. It was a camera unit connected by a cable to a shoulder-held tape recorder/player, and a battery pack. So when you wanted to take video footage, you had to lug around this camera on one shoulder, and on the other, a shoulder bag holding a full sized VHS recording unit and a decently heavy battery pack. This thing was ancient and humongus compared to today's standards, and would make any lo-fi techno-geek drool at the sight of it.

He passed away several years ago. I think of him often, and the things I learned from him. He was patient, loving, a creative problem solver and very handy. He showed me how to perform maintanence on cars, fix up around the house and more. It really seemed like he could fix anything. He was one of the greatest men I ever knew, and find myself tearfully missing him from time to time. It does make me proud to think he was a photographer and good at it.

This has had a big impact on my desire to persue photography. Not professionally of course, as I'm a support engineer for a major tech company. The more I think on it, his drive may have been more to record a history of the family, rather than woo the art community with his creativity. Of course, why not be good at it while you're recording a history in pictures? The last 15+ years, whenever I'd visit, I would almost always find him in his dinning room in a swivel chair, with a  larger sized journal opened and written in, and scrap books and photos strewn around the table. He was a true family historian. I've got to give the same credit to grandma in how much journaling I've seen her do as well. It seems her writing and journaling at least equals if not exceeds grandpa's. But of course no comparison, as they've both lived such exemplary lives of service, love and forethought for their progeny. Especially forethought in how we will be able to read, watch and thumb through photos, videos, and journals of theirs (and our) lives. Truly impressive.

Here's proof of even grandpa being rooted in photography.
Here is grandpa with his brothers and sister, "exposed"

to photography from a very young age.

Later, grandpa served in the Army Air Corp as a radio operator on a B24 bomber. He flew bombing missions with his crew over Europe in WWII. He of course had a fascination with WWII and was a favorite genre of his to watch on video or tv.

I thought this shot made him look like a movie star.
He was a handsome man.

So I could really go on about my grandpa. I could tell how he was a true rugged American working for 20 plus years and retiring from a steel mill here in Utah Valley. He was always on the go, and explored a lot of the states with his wife, showing us yougin's that you're never too old to get up and go. Served a 2 year mission for his church, and dedicated his life to showing love towards others, as his wife did right along side him. Grandma still exudes this love in everything she says and does.

High School

I wasn't the best student in high school, but could easily excel if I put my mind to it. So I wasn't an over achiever by any means, and took some classes as a chance to diverge from the norm, and focus on non-traditional learning. Photography was one of these classes, and once I got a taste for the dark room and the whole photography process, I was totally hooked.

At first, the classroom was really make-shift, and we would turn off the lights, and make sure the door was locked so no one would come in and ruin our developing and enlarging. By my junior year, we had an official darkroom built into the back of the room, with installed sinks/baths, nice enlargers, overhead darkroom fluorescents, and a rotating door to enter. So I even got a taste of going from the make-shift do-it-yourself type of situation, to a nice 5 star darkroom setup.

Digital camera's were just barely being discussed in class as a "future" technology. I didn't know of anyone at the time that had one, and the thought of waiting around for such a convenience wasn't even an option. Plus the allure of black & white as an art, to me, was compelling enough to not even give that a second thought. Even color photography was a rich persons art, and this made me indulge and appreciate black and white photography even more.

Several people including the teacher had nicer SLR cameras. I was always wanting one, and the books and lessons focused on the manual settings, light meters, and techniques and technology of using one. But in the end, as long as we were shooting on the right B&W film, we were all in the same boat, developing the same type of film and creating enlargements the same way.

The teacher taught darkroom enlarging techniques, dodging, burning, polarizing, sepia toning, etc. It was an original "old school" education in photography. I loved it, and am grateful I learned all that, because it really segways into the present day digital photography world in many key ways. Such as the settings on my digital SLR, or the tools that are in Adobe's Photoshop. If you have never learned about traditional photography and the traditional darkroom, you won't have a complete understanding of what some of the tools and terminology are referring to. It won't stop anyone from being able to master either a D-SLR (digital single lens reflex) or Photoshop, but it may keep one from linking and understanding the photography process as a whole. Which can lead to undiscovered insights and relationships in the technology and techniques found in photography.

Well, I'm going to stop here, and save some personal history and entries for another time. But to sum up my initial post, I'm happy to be here on God's green earth, and to dive back into this interesting art of photography.