Writing about photography and the place – space it has taken up in my life seems odd to me. Photography has always been in my life, first via my Grandparents and Parent, then on my own part learning through taking black and white photos with my first plastic camera and an old brownie box camera.
As I got older and my interest in photography increased I begged my Parents for a 35mm SLR. I don’t really remember why I fixated on Canon cameras but I did and for my birthday a shiny new Canon AV SLR was unwrapped.
Many photos of Friends and Family were taken with this new camera and kit lens that came along with it. I carried it everywhere I went. Even if I didn’t have an opportunity to take any photos. The camera was always there in a red fanny pack emblazoned withe the Canon logo. Years of carrying the SLR around. Practicing and making tons of mistakes with the photos. I tried to learn as much as I could reading the photography books in the library near my Grandparents house and the High School Library.
I had a vague idea of wanting to go to Art School after High School but that was not in my Parents plans for me. Which is probably one of the best things to not happen to me in my young life. I go to college and end up taking a few freelance jobs photographing sporting and college formal events.
Fast forward a few more years than I care to say and I am watching a news report about some sort of natural disaster like a tornado in the midwest. A survivor of the catastrophic event is being interviewed by the news reader about what has happened to them and how lucky they are to be alive.
As I listened to the survivor tell their story, I was struck by the sense of profound relief expressed by this person and yet you could tell the loss of their belongings still stung very deeply. They wished that they had been able to save some of their photographs. As I listened, the idea for this business begins to form. More time flows by. Unfortunately many more disasters of different types do as well. Each of these events is followed by their related survivor interviews cementing the general business concept. Find a way to scan people’s photographs so they can store them in safe places before a major event happens to them.
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