Anyway, I don't intend to write a lot; that's not what I am. I consider myself a photographer, which is the only thing I've done consistently all my life. The other thing is teaching, but nowhere near, really. I was supposed to be an engineer and I actually went to engineering school at the Catholic University of Chile for three awful years. But I was not cut out to be an engineer.
So this is what I did, mostly:
My geometry professor, Mr. Hernán Cortés, who actually was a teacher, meaning that's all he did. And a good teacher he was. I enjoyed his classes a lot.
And here is my calculus teacher, an engineer and part time professor, whose name I can't recall, unfortunately.
These photos were taken in 1956 and the original negatives are not in good shape. Simply put, if it wasn't for Photoshop I would not be able to show them at all. Just to give you an example here are two photographs of the same time, before and after:
The process of exporting from Lightroom 4 to this blog did eliminate some scratches, but it still quite clear how bad are the negatives.
It took me several hours to clean them up in Photoshop CS2 in 2004 and I still wonder if it was worth the effort, other than the fact that I learned a lot and needed the practice. I should probably re-scan them again, since I now have a much better scanner (a Nikon Cool Scan IV ED, quite obsolete, though, but still trucking,) but that would mean retouching the negs all over again.
In 1956 I used Tri-x film from Kodak, which had been introduced for 35mm cameras in 1954 and was the highest rated B&W film, actually a game changer for available light photographers. It could be pushed to 800 ASA (ISO nowadays) and the grain was acceptable. I sometimes pushed it way beyond that, but the quality wasn't too great. The main developer at the time was Kodak's D-76, which is still around, as is Tri-x film. Amazing.
My main camera (not the one I used for these photographs, though) was a Rolleicord III, a 2.25x2.25 inches (6x6 cms) roll film camera with a 75mm adapter which I used most of the time, mostly because of the economics. But the design of the camera forced me to take most of my photographs in a vertical format and with the equivalent of a 75mm semi telephoto lens. Not good for the kind of photography I was already interested in at the time, but great for portraits.
The Rolleicord III Twin Lens Reflex 1950-1953 model.
The way I acquired that camera is a story in itself. An uncle, married to one of my mother's sisters and very well to do, had an assistant that was also his accountant. He was one of his most trusted employees and the two families were very close. He was also a dedicated photography hobbyist, always with his camera along and posing people and taking photographs. So it was natural that he would want a more professional camera than the ones he was using. I'm sure he convinced his wife to let him get a more professional camera by telling her that he could make some extra money with a better camera. So he bought a Rolleicord III camera with a flashlight and the 35mm attachment. And he started taking pictures as a semi-pro. As it turned out, he eventually ended up taking pictures of chorus girls in variety theaters, something his wife did not quite like. Unable to convince him to give up the chorus girls photography, she went to my uncle who proceeded to acquire the camera from him after pointing out to him in very clear terms what his real job was. Since my uncle had no clue nor interest in photography, the camera ended up in a closet, abandoned and forgotten.
At about that time I took my "bachillerato," an academic test supposed to measure graduating high school students' preparedness for college. Since I was in a track to become an engineer, I chose my major in mathematics and did quite well, to everyone's surprise, including my own. Then I took the entrance exam for the Engineering School and again did very well. My uncle, excited because I had entered engineering school without "cuñas" (help from third parties) and knowing about my enthusiasm for photography, decided to reward me and gave me the Rolleicord with all its attachments. For me it was a gift from heaven. I was on my way.
As a footnote to this story, my uncle eventually married the accountant's wife (in Uruguay, since there was no divorce in Chile at the time.)
And that's it for now, till the next one...
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