brosigonzalesphotos: Martha My Dear

My Early Monochromes

LIBYDO,

Learning by Doing, is the Way to Go !

FYI - 35mm Black & White Portraiture was my

BAPTISM of FIRE in Photography -

--- plain and simple ---

Whatever gratification I get from my current Digital Portraiture

- can never be compared to the Hard-Earned Fulfillment I Experienced

teaching myself - slowly, patiently, and painstakingly - this Beautiful Art Form called Available Light Portraiture.

Always at a Loss for Words - When I remember my "rookie DAZE"

as an aspiring portrait artist - All I can do is Sigh and Wonder -

Where I'd be now, or what I'd be Be Doing had I not taught myself

Photography in the traditional, "old school" way.

Today everything is Instant. Back in the day - Teaching myself portraiture was Tough and Tedious. No instant Preview, hardly any room Room for Error, Extremely Challenging -> at the very least ! - having no A-Focus on the SLRs and having to be limited by the number of film cartridges one could carry , which at the most, had 36 exposures each.

-----------------

Fortunately - I was able to preserve some of my favorite Black & White Available Light Portraits and eventually copied them on a flatbed scanner - ERGO, these JPEG files.

-------- in some of the images, one can even notice the edge of the print AND even some smudges [partcularly on the images of Monette and Martha, wearing a hat] -------

TBTold - There IS a lot more from where these came from - And fact Is - I'm posting these selections, Literally, ON A WHIM - cos I simply noticed, by chance, in my Hard Drives - a random set of Black & White portraits in a folder -wherein five or so of the portrait subjects ALL had names starting with the letter "M" ..... so - I marked them appropriately ..... and here they are .....