My first camera was a Baby Brownie. I loved that camera. I was maybe six or seven years old when my father gave it to me. I used to create still lifes in the backyard and photograph them. I loved creating pictures. My parents upgraded me to a Kodak Instamatic and every Birthday or Christmas I looked forward to getting film and flashcubes.
My father was into photography for awhile and built a darkroom in our basement. He taught me how to develop and print B&W film as well as Ektachrome slides. These are skills that served me well over the years. Up until the world went digital, I always had my own darkroom in the house, no matter where I lived.
When I hit my late teens and had a real income (as opposed to baby sitting money), I bought my first SLR. I bought a Pentax ME. The Pentax ME is an aperture priority camera. This turned out to be very useful when I started shooting concerts and live music in clubs. I later added a Pentax MX which is a one hundred percent manual camera. The MX is also my all time favorite camera.
Fast forward to the digital days. I held off on buying a digital SLR for many years. I know how it works. First you buy the camera, then you want this lens and that lens so on and so forth. I already had quite a few good lenses and other accessories sitting around doing nothing. I decided to go with a Sony Mavica as I liked how it recorded images directly onto small CDs.
Eventually Pentax came out with the K100D and I bought one. Like all Pentax DSLRs, the K100D can use my old Ashai Pentax lenses. I eventually bought a K10D as well. For the most part, I now shoot with the K10D exclusively.
Cameras: Baby Brownie, Pentax ME, Pentax MX, Pentax K100D, PentaxK10D.
Lenses: way too many to list. The majority are Asahi Pentax M-Series lenses. I have a few modern day Pentax lenses and a Tamron or two.
My father was into photography for awhile and built a darkroom in our basement. He taught me how to develop and print B&W film as well as Ektachrome slides. These are skills that served me well over the years. Up until the world went digital, I always had my own darkroom in the house, no matter where I lived.
When I hit my late teens and had a real income (as opposed to baby sitting money), I bought my first SLR. I bought a Pentax ME. The Pentax ME is an aperture priority camera. This turned out to be very useful when I started shooting concerts and live music in clubs. I later added a Pentax MX which is a one hundred percent manual camera. The MX is also my all time favorite camera.
Fast forward to the digital days. I held off on buying a digital SLR for many years. I know how it works. First you buy the camera, then you want this lens and that lens so on and so forth. I already had quite a few good lenses and other accessories sitting around doing nothing. I decided to go with a Sony Mavica as I liked how it recorded images directly onto small CDs.
Eventually Pentax came out with the K100D and I bought one. Like all Pentax DSLRs, the K100D can use my old Ashai Pentax lenses. I eventually bought a K10D as well. For the most part, I now shoot with the K10D exclusively.
Cameras: Baby Brownie, Pentax ME, Pentax MX, Pentax K100D, PentaxK10D.
Lenses: way too many to list. The majority are Asahi Pentax M-Series lenses. I have a few modern day Pentax lenses and a Tamron or two.
If anything has been consistent throughout the course of my life, it is my love of music and photography. The first concert I shot was the Patti Smith Group at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. I learned an important lesson that night. I learned if you attended a concert with an SLR and a telephoto lens, it was very easy to get right up front as it was assumed you were a pro. Not so these days. Times have changed and you are lucky if you can get any kind of camera into a major show.
It would be another two or three years before I shot another show. Once I started however, I didn't stop for quite awhile. I used to go to clubs in San Francisco and Berkeley and just shoot whoever was playing. I often made friends with the bands and traded prints in exchange for getting my name on the guest list. I didn't have a lot of money and neither did most of the bands I shot, but it sure was fun. I even managed to get published now and then.
I wound up moving to South Florida in the mid-eighties. Coming from such a diverse and thriving scene as the one in the Bay Area, South Florida's seemed like a musical wasteland. At first it seemed like there was nothing going on other than Top 40 Cover Music. Ahhhh!!!!
In my boredom I decided that South Florida needed a music magazine similar to B.A.M. I decided to create one. Remember, this was back before most people owned a pc. I put the first issue of "Gold Coast Live!" together using a typewriter, stencils and a photocopier. The first issue was more about Bay Area bands than South Florida bands as I had yet to discover a scene.
Once the first issue was printed I went to work looking for material and advertising for the second issue. In the process I met Kim Fredericks (a.k.a. Kimberly Scorch) and the rest is history. Kim knew how to find the good local bands. Together, with a few other people, we went to work documenting the scene.
I spent most of my time writing, editing, working on design and layout, distribution, etc etc. I left the photography to others. I sort of regret that now. (Regret the part about putting my camera down and not doing any photography).
BTW- I am into manual focus and rarely ever use auto focus.
It would be another two or three years before I shot another show. Once I started however, I didn't stop for quite awhile. I used to go to clubs in San Francisco and Berkeley and just shoot whoever was playing. I often made friends with the bands and traded prints in exchange for getting my name on the guest list. I didn't have a lot of money and neither did most of the bands I shot, but it sure was fun. I even managed to get published now and then.
I wound up moving to South Florida in the mid-eighties. Coming from such a diverse and thriving scene as the one in the Bay Area, South Florida's seemed like a musical wasteland. At first it seemed like there was nothing going on other than Top 40 Cover Music. Ahhhh!!!!
In my boredom I decided that South Florida needed a music magazine similar to B.A.M. I decided to create one. Remember, this was back before most people owned a pc. I put the first issue of "Gold Coast Live!" together using a typewriter, stencils and a photocopier. The first issue was more about Bay Area bands than South Florida bands as I had yet to discover a scene.
Once the first issue was printed I went to work looking for material and advertising for the second issue. In the process I met Kim Fredericks (a.k.a. Kimberly Scorch) and the rest is history. Kim knew how to find the good local bands. Together, with a few other people, we went to work documenting the scene.
I spent most of my time writing, editing, working on design and layout, distribution, etc etc. I left the photography to others. I sort of regret that now. (Regret the part about putting my camera down and not doing any photography).
BTW- I am into manual focus and rarely ever use auto focus.
Eclypso.com features the work of catharine j. anderson. All photographs on Eclypso.com are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.
Contact: canders5 @ bellsouth.net
2 comments:
hi i am a high school student and i dont know much about copyright stuff to be honest, but i would really like to use your photo of jello biafra on my blog... would that be okay?
Sure, just make sure to include a photo credit "by Catharine J. Anderson" That's all, thanks!
Oh and how about a link to your blog in case anyone is interested? :-)
Post a Comment