I suppose that my history with taking photographs is not the story that one usually hears. 

I was raised in Ohio (please don’t hold that against me). As a child I was prone to sinus and ear infections and started to lose my hearing. I was about 10 years old when I was taken to the hospital to have x-rays of my sinuses. That was all it took – I knew from that day on that I wanted to be just like the very kind technologist and take x-rays that would help sick people. I have often wondered if that kind person knew that she set the course of my life. After taking the films, she took me into the darkroom to show me how the films were processed. She explained how the different chemicals worked and once developed, she pointed out everything that could be seen on the films. It was so fascinating. I was amazed at how the whole process worked.

I was about 12 years old when my Christmas wish came true and I was surprised with my first Brownie camera. Although I loved taking pictures, I was limited because having the film developed was too expensive. But, I did save babysitting money so that I could take pictures. My next camera was the miracle Polaroid. The packs of “film” were not inexpensive but it did save on paying to have film developed and you got to instantly see your pictures.

Life moved on and while all of my classmates were talking about what college they wanted to apply to, I did not even bother thinking about college. I knew that I wanted to attend a Radiologic Technology training program. I was lucky that there was a program not far away and I could live at home while attending classes. The only hitch was my age. I was only 17 years old and you had to be 18 to work in and around radiation areas. I was finally able to start my classes in January of 1968. Although we did have a modern x-ray film processor, many of the films still had to be hand developed. So, I ended up back in the darkroom with the same chemical smells from many years before when I first decided what my career would be. 

A town near my training hospital had a large commercial nursery that was always trying to develop new hybrids by radiating the roots or seeds from common stock. After normal working hours, we used the cobalt therapy equipment to radiate all varieties of plants. As a thank you, the nursery would periodically drop off large bouquets of flowers. Well, the flowers were pretty but the most fun was using all different types of films and all different equipment to take images of the flowers. That eventually progressed to taking xrays of everything we could imagine, just curious about what we could see and thinking that we were being very artistic. And yes, we would take images while someone slowly pulled the object around on top of the film cassette. Everything old is new again.

My next career step was moving on to another training program. I decided that working in nuclear medicine was calling to me. Once again, more imaging. But this time it was 35mm cameras that were attached to oscilloscopes that detected the radioactive materials which were injected into patients. One wrong setting and hours of time was wasted, not to mention the loss of the results of a much-needed exam on that patient – no pressure here.

This job finally gave me enough money for my first real vacation. Hawaii, here I come. I don’t remember what camera I bought but I do know I went through over 40 rolls of film. I just recently threw those pictures out.

So, I always had a camera in my hand. When I finally retired, I knew that the only place for me was the low country of South Carolina. While deciding where to live, I kept checking to see what kind of activities would be nearby. One walk around the classrooms here convinced me that this is the only place I wanted to live. The first club I joined was Photography Club! It’s been an incredible journey here. I believe I am on my 4th camera since living here and have met the most amazing people and do believe that this group is “friends helping friends” in more ways than one. I now have a permanent “camera elbow” and left eye squint but could not imagine life without my camera!!