Mark was, at the time, receiving some instruction and a lot of support from Deb DeWitt-Marchant, a very successful Portland artist. Typically, I was there to catch any scraps of wisdom that hit the floor and cobbled together some sort of aesthetic based on that, my other drawing and painting, and various artists I admired (if only briefly).
In college, Mark worked for a long time at the darkroom, and I was lucky enough to have him show me around the place. I took enough pictures to put together a handful of photos that I thought were a lot better than they really were. I worked in the library for several years, and was a regular visitor to the photography section, where I gravitated to black and white or botanical material.
My final year in college, I got some sort of a wild hair, and all of a sudden I was seeing all sorts of photos I could be taking everywhere. That turned into an interest in unnoticed inanimate urban subjects, and I turned that interest into a b&w photography project.
My interest in photography really lay dormant for quite a long time after that. Aside from a lot of decent travel pictures and 1000 or so images taken as a travel/music writer, I didn't do much. I would pull out the old K_1000 from time to time, but until I got my first digital camera, a 1.3 MP Sony, I didn't really take anything worthwhile. I really didn't take many decent pictures until a couple years ago, when I got my Sony DSC P10.
Digital photography was a major revelation to me. Suddenly, I could render color images almost exactly as I saw them. Being able to review photos made it so I could learn on the fly. I didn't have to take the picture, hope it was right, then learn that I was mistaken days or weeks later. I could take a picture and learn from it instantly. Within perhaps 3 hours of getting the camera, I had improved my phtographic abilities dramatically. I think that most of the world was undergoing the same sort of revelation at about the same time (if not sooner).
Of course, when I got my DSLR, something similar occurred again. The ability to think about the image and then see it materialize or transform is incredibly valuable. I don't think I really feel fluent using the DSLR yet, but hopefully I will be able to capture what I see most of the time sometime soon. It's just a matter of practice, I think.
