New York Shadow Behind the Scenes

by Pakaln, Alan

• ISBN13: 9780999795200
• ISBN10: 0999795201
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2018-09-17
• Publisher: Bookbaby

Summary

By profession, I am a biomedical engineer with many years of experience overseeing the application of medical technology in New York City hospitals. By desire, I am a photographer with many more years experience than working in my profession. I am an amateur in the classic sense; I photograph what I care about. I was born in New York City (Doctor's Hospital, now a luxury condominium), and have lived and worked in and around NYC all my life. My education in photography began about age 17, and took place in a small darkroom, a closet under the stairs leading to the basement of the house I grew up in. Eventually, my darkroom had two enlargers, one for medium format, and I could produce both color and black-and-white images. Now, like most, I use a digital camera, scanner, and printer. Not better, just different. I've never been a high-tech enthusiast, although I have studied aspects of Weston's and Adams' zone system. My favorite cameras were the Nikkormat 35mm and the inexpensive, early point-and-shoot cameras, like a Brownie with 127 film. And now - simple, inexpensive, point-and-shoot cameras. Different technologies offer different ways of feeling about the process of photographing: SLR with film - careful, exacting; Brownie with film and viewfinder - playful; rear display digital point and shoot - casual, careless. New York Shadow: Behind The Scenes, is 8 series of photographs, totaling 173. Each chapter is a story about New York City, and of course, the experience of the person taking the pictures. I could be called "an accidental photographer" because I never thought about becoming a professional, though by the mountains of prints and boxes of negatives I have, I am a photographer. Sometimes were are what we least expect.

Author Biography

By profession, I am a biomedical engineer with many years experience overseeing the application of medical technology in New York City hospitals. By amator (amateur), I am a photographer with many more years experience than my profession. I was born in New York City (Doctor's Hospital, now a luxury condominium), and have lived and worked in and around NYC all my life. My education in photography began about age 17, and took place in a small dark room, a closet under the stairs leading to the basement of the house I grew up in. I was self taught, and a proud amateur: I traded a commercially driven workday for the play and love of my own taking. That said, my darkroom had two enlargers, one for large format, and I could produce both color and black-and-white images. And now, I use a digital camera, scanner, and printer. At each successive residence, a photographic darkroom was built: under an elevated platform bed in lower Manhattan loft, a living room with blackened windows in a 5th-floor walk-up in Washington Heights, and in a spare bedroom of an apartment in Westchester County, NY. I've never been a high-tech enthusiast, but I studied aspects of Weston's and Adams' zone system. I also shot in medium format using a Mamiya, C330, 2 1/4. Still, my favorite cameras were the Nikkormat 35mm and the inexpensive, early point-and-shoot cameras, like a Brownie with 127 film.