I came across some of my old B&W negatives today, and they rekindled some of my early photography memories. In 1983, when I was 18 and happily painting and drawing, I took a photography class in college - it was actually named Photo 101. I had the teacher load my first roll of film, since I didn’t know how. After that it was all I thought of - okay I thought of girls too… but I would spend hours and hours every day shooting, developing film and printing in the school darkroom. I had a very basic Praktica LLC East German camera, but it was enough - I could take pictures!  I carried my camera everywhere, every day. For many years it was a permanent appendage. Anywhere I was, I had something fantastic I could do. I started regarding photography as a dear friend with whom I could spend countless hours, and never have a dull moment.

My Photo 101 professor, the late Glay Sperling, was not an entirely down-to-earth man. He was a conceited, pseudo-sophisticate who always dressed like he had just completed a polo event, or was about to greet the Queen. He was a British expatriate, so we called him James Bond. 

But this self-absorbed man was a key inspiration for me. He singled me out one day in front of the class, and circulated some of my photos to the other students, explaining what made them work. He had done this with other students on other days, but it made me feel great. One day he asked me what I was majoring in. I said Commerce. He looked at me like I was an idiot and told me I had to pursue photography… that I had a talent. “There is nothing more tragic,” he told me, “than wasted talent.”

And there is nothing as effective as down-to-earth encouragement.

I faced massive obstacles, and loud dissenting voices in my early years - long after finishing college and struggling to make a living out of my passion. An epic battle in my head fought itself out for years and years, but it was the encouragement from the positive voices around me that gave me the strength to continue.

If your love is in the arts, and you dream of a life creating art, then just do it! Find the positive voices around you, because there’ll be no shortage of the negative ones.

This is one of my earliest pictures, shot during my one and only photo class in 1983. Right from the start, I loved the night…