looking back

when i was in grade school, i had a teacher named mrs. morrow. she always told us to remember her name by remembering the word tomorrow. she wore her hair in a french twist the same way, everyday. she loved having us as students, and was always enthusiastic about our projects. she wore bracelets which were actually rolls of masking tape; apparently masking tape was worth more than gold in that classroom. i always remember doing fun projects, like making faces out of tennis balls, and paper mache sculptures. we once made an entire spaceship out of art materials, one so big that our whole class could fit inside.

when i was in middle school, i had a teacher named mr. benevento. he was more serious, and expected more out of us now that we had grown up a little. i remembered hating that class. all the assignments that we did, we did as a class. sure each thing was different, but it was so much the same. we learned to draw figures with our eyes closed, how to draw the perfect tea cup shading and all, we learned depth perception and collages.

in 1997 , freshman year of high school, i was relieved that there were no more required art classes. i was a bad at drawing, and couldn't paint to save my life. my pottery always cracked in the kiln and my ideas never turned out right. i decided to take a photography class. the teacher was an eccentric woman named ms. garnes. she had taught photo for years, and spent half her time living in france, and half her time living here.

there was something with her, that clicked with me. i fell in love with black and white photography. i didn't mind that my hands stunk like developer or stop. while everyone else in the class would rush through and hand in half assed assignments, i took my time. the next year i took color photo and into to digital. in 2001 i graduated, and later i heard that ms. garnes had retired. (forced? retired? who knows.) i never got to tell her how much of an impact she had left on me, so here it is now. maybe one day she'll find it online.

i only wish that i had time now to concentrate on photography. one day i would like to have my own little dark room in my basement. there is just something about rolling your own film, making test strips, getting the filters right. i'm so sad that film photography has become such a lost cause.