Steven Schwartz

When I was young I thought i was weird; I felt like i didn't want to conform to all that was prescribed and expected of a child in the late 1960's and 1970's. Why can't I create my own dinner? (I didn't know how to cook. I knew I just liked touching food and figuring out what to put together to create my own delicious meals) Why can't girls play on the same team as boys? ( I didn't buy the bit about girls being so biologically different that they couldn't compete with boys at that age) Why can't I develop my own film that I carefully (or sometimes not so much so) exposed and shot- in my own darkroom...even though i was just 9 years old. Age 10- A gift from a relative brought me my first darkroom (for $20) A VERY basic darkroom. But it was a darkroom that gave me the ability and most importantly the joy to determine when I could see the images I carefully took. For the first year or so I could just take pictures on my Kodak Brownie camera rush downstairs in the sometimes bathroom, sometimes darkroom and process my film to see what i had just shot. It was really exciting. Back then there was no digital. This was film, real celluloid. tangible proof of MY work. There was not much a 10 year old could call his own. But this was mine and it was real and I loved creating. I was hooked!