What happened? Am I still a shooter, or just getting old?

There’s a danger in reminiscing- in the last few days, and I don’t know why, I’ve been thinking way too much on the mid 1980’s…a time when I was shooting for fun, and a little profit, but a time when I was truly thinking as a photographer…not worrying about how to pay the bills, or what I would become, but what I was… I, at least I thought I was, a PHOTOGRAPHER…

The best thing in the world a fella could be.

In that time, I was around some very creative people. Bob Garcia, I still don’t know why were aren’t both either dead or in prison, who taught me about living on the edge.

Robert Herrman, who pushed me off the edge.

Ron Pitts, Gary Putman, Mark Silberman, and David Leason, who all kept me from falling off the edge.

And Lloyd Francis Jr, Howard Ford, and Jeff Warrin, all who let me believe, whether it was an allusion or not, it didn’t matter, that I was an artist, a photographer, a shooter. When other people took pictures, we shot photos. When other people developed film, we souped it.

We shot to capture a moment.

Focus and exposure took a back seat to emotion and composition.

It didn’t pay well, but it sure was fun.

I have been spending too much time in the past few days looking these folks up, googling like crazy, wearing out facebook, not because I have a deep seated need to connect with these people, although that would be welcome, but a deep seated necessity to remember WHY I have a camera, why I have one in the first place, why I think it’s better to shoot with an F2AS or an old C330 instead of a mark II 1d.

Why I wish my fingernails were still stained with Dektol and D76 instead of reaching for a compact flash card.

Just when it seems as though I’m about to get profound, I realize that the only thing it’s about to get is late and I should be in bed.

Oh well, I still like to shoot.

I just have to remember how to make it fun.