When I was younger, my father dabbled around with photography and I remember his Minolta equipment. I enjoyed going with him to Lynch Camera, the local camera store, owned by his friend Al Lynch. My uncle was there as a salesperson not long after he finished high school. His tenure lasted through the Lynch camera days all the way through the following owner when it became Van Tuil Photo. He retired as manager when the store closed. Towards the end of the Van Tuil days, I was fortunate enough to work for several years alongside my uncle. This was after my days in the photography studio.

Sometime after I started high school, (not sure of the exact year) I was given my first Nikon by my uncle. A Christmas present if I remember correctly. It was a Nikon F2 Photomic, (Considering it was second in Nikon’s pro series of bodies, it was an awesome piece of gear for a high school kid to have), and it came with three lenses. A 50mm F2 and a 43 to 86mm F3.5 zoom, both Nikon, and a Tamron 135mm F 2.8 . I have them to this day. A little worse for wear, but they maintain a cherished place in my collection.

Once I received the Nikon, my interest was there but somewhat causal. I really didn’t have a clear idea what I was doing and there was much trial and error. After I graduated from high school, I attended Edinboro University where I took my first photo classes. My interest in photography really took off after that. In fact after my first couple of years I had a one person show in the gallery at the university featuring my photography and ceramics. I stated working at Gold Craft Photography in downtown Edinboro shortly after that. During those years, I had access to three darkrooms. One at the university, one at the studio and one at home. I was either shooting images or in the darkroom.

Over the years I gained more experience and started collecting Nikon gear. That first F2 Photomic started a lifelong obsession with Nikon equipment and photography that remains to this day. I am always on the look out for a piece of gear I don’t have and think I can’t live without.

I have recently been visiting and sorting out my older work. This includes scanning and digitizing slides and negatives as well as the occasional print. I stumbled upon these images in a box of old prints and I decided to scan them. As I was doing this, I tried to place the time frame when I would have taken them.

The concrete monolithic grain elevators were constructed in 1918 to load grain onto ships after the wooden ones burnt down. They were located on the docks at the foot of Holland Street and could be seen towering above the bayfront. They were massive and particularly visible from the public dock at the foot of State Street, now called Dobbins Landing. It was not a place where a high school kid in his father’s car should have been, as it was what was considered to be sort of a rough area. It was a pretty run down and decrepit so I never ventured too far out onto the docks. I shot my photos, got my film developed and printed and moved onto other subjects and activities.

I started driving in 1981, and graduated in 1983. The grain elevators were demolished in 1986. So if I used 1982 as a rough guess, these images are forty four years old. They were one of the first rolls of film I shot with a Nikon, or overall at that matter. I do remember having an old Kodak Instamatic when I was younger, and can remember some of the images I took, but I have not found them yet.

I decided to scan these prints. They were pretty rough so they required some serious clean up. They are small prints, only 3 x 5 inches. As I was doing this I decided I would add them to my website as a record of where I began.

I tried to balance how much I did to them and leaned towards light restoration. I didn’t want to overwork them because I wanted them to be as close to what they originally would have looked like forty four years ago. That fact that I still have them goes to show I never throw anything away.

I am happy with the results. I regret that I never went back and revisited the site in more depth as I was able to do with the Koehler Brewery and Union Station. I am confident I could have created some amazing images of a subject that is now just a dim memory and one that becomes more so each year.