About:

This image was made by my friend Keith Robson who asked me to do a head shot of his sister for her company's marketing department. By that time the studio space had seen my business close for retirement, another photographer establish his business there, then move on, with a Kumdo martial arts operation following him. After they left Keith used the studio occasionally while I was trying to sell the property. Here he had the space to do enlarged reproductions of classic artwork for his customers. He is sorely missed.


For over twenty years I ran an advertising/industrial photography studio making the mundane look good for businesses. While not glamorous, it provided a living for our family and a sense of satisfaction for having given clients high quality images for reproduction before the days of Photoshop. I maintained my own Black and White darkroom, processing 4x5, 120, 35mm, and occasionally 8x10 film. I always made my own BW prints. Color materials, primarily 4x5, were sent out to quality oriented labs in the Philadelphia area. With the advent of desktop publishing, corporations began changing their communications, marketing and advertising methods embodied in the phrase, "it's good enough." Even Kodak documented the changing landscape. It ultimately became a race to the bottom, so I closed the business before bankruptcy closed it for me, and sought new horizons.
Because I am a terrible typist, I had embraced computers to do billing in a professional manner, both for appearance and tracking. That made the transition to digital photography an easy, understandable matter. The cost was a completely different thing, and the lack of understanding about digital imaging by some clients proved challenging on the education front. After I closed the studio business this basic understanding of the digital world enabled me to assist a friend in his business of providing IT services to municipalities, police departments, and businesses.