Can't Quit My Day Job: Hi Jenny Brown

I remember taking my first photography/darkroom class.... a long time ago. Maybe I was 15 (?) and the class/darkroom was on the top floor of the Dickinson College art gallery. It was kind of intimidating, and also super-duper neat. I was already hooked on photography, so my parents were just "encouraging" me; and then they encouraged me some more by building a functional darkroom in our basement... I'm pretty sure there are still prints hanging to dry in the old cement shower. The enlarger was a hand-me-down from a friend's grandfather, and like the grandfather, it was old and a little blurry. But I liked the result. I remember taking, what I thought at the time to be, awesome photographs of George's family laundry mat, and dogs riding loose in pick up trucks.

And then Mama went to college. I think I was still using an old Pentax then. Loved it. At some point, my parents, ever encouraging, bought me a Nikon N80. Wow. And with that I remember taking picture for the UPJ Advocate; my favorite was of a frat boy snowboarding in front of the academic buildings. Wow-wee, that was fun.

The bad thing with film, most probably the only bad thing with film, is the film. Twenty years after I started developing my own negatives, I have no idea where any of them are; there is barely any proof I even owned a camera back in my formative years. My sister's wedding negatives are still MIA.

For a short time, after a Heroin junky (I imagine) climbed thru my Dunlo apartment window (after the Easter Keg) and robbed me, I didn't own a camera. At the time this was the worst. Mama was mad. But in retrospect this was the best thing (photographically) ever. My parents (again) and my newly wed sister stepped in and bought me my first digital camera; a super fabulous Nikon Coolpix swiveling point and shoot. It was the best. I kinda still long for the days of that compact, hide in the purse camera. Kinda.

And then I got married and Daddy bought me a water/shock proof point and shoot, which served it's purpose in the bayous of Louisiana. But, it wasn't enough. And neither was the used Canon Rebel I bought off a Habitat volunteer, but I had no reason to spend more money on better camera... yet.

And then I had boys. I finally had a good excuse, err, I had a need for a good camera again. I needed to take a million pictures a year of these boys, so they wouldn't grow to fast, and I wouldn't busily forget all the tender, neat, dirty and fun moments.

So, William & Alexander, if that wasn't enough summing up (in camera lenses) of your Mama's life from age15 to 35, you'll just have to go talk to Jenny Brown...

So, speaking of Jenny Brown, the whole reason for this post, I took some pictures of her, and they turned out pretty neat. So, she used them. And now her etsy page (Hi Jenny Brown) and her website/blog (Hi Jenny Brown) are stacked with Mama's pictures... or at least they were in 2013! She even wrote about what a good model she was here. JB will, inevitably, take all of her pages down, so Daddy took some screen shots for posterity.

And here are a few of Mama's favorites with a little better resolution...

And, hopefully, this is where it begins.