The Darkroom Days

I grew up around the darkroom. That’s what it was called anyway.

See, my father and one or two of my brothers were into photography and had an actual darkroom in our house at one point. I’m the youngest of nine kids (yes, 9, and yes, same mom) and by the time I was of any age able to remember anything, the “darkroom” was long gone and was used for storage and tools and such. But we still called it “the darkroom” and it wasn’t until my teenage years that I even knew why.

Fast-forward 20 years or so and I had graduated high school, moved to Los Angeles for a few years to attend music school, moved back to Atlanta after deciding I didn’t like being a starving musician, painted office buildings with my brother, and finally realized people would pay me to fix and manage their computer systems. Then on a Tuesday evening in early 1998, I met Maria.

Art and Addiction

Image copyright © 1999 Manuel Llaneras

By the third ask (maybe fourth) she agreed to go out with me. We went to the grocery store.

The second and third dates were better and we both realized what was in store for us. We were engaged in December of that same year and we married the following June. It wasn’t until we were married that I owned my first camera — a little Minolta film point & shoot — mostly because everybody is supposed to have a camera, right. I still have it and it still has a partially used roll of film inside with pictures of who knows what.

When our first son was born I borrowed my sisters digital camera and fell in love with the whole process of capturing images. At the time I didn’t really realize it, but the desire was there. By the time our 2nd son was born in 2003, we owned a little Canon A20 digital point & shoot and I was using up hard drive space at an unnatural rate. As my addiction grew, so did the quality of my gear and then in 2005, a rather precipitous event occurred.

My friend David asked me to shoot his wedding.

Weddings?

I really had no interest and repeatedly told him so for at least 6 months. But eventually he prevailed and we made a deal. After his wedding day had passed and I reflected on it, two things surprised me: first, I was surprised at how much work/taxing it was and second, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it!

I was drawn in by the joy. I was drawn to the powerful emotion a single image could convey in the viewer. And I was drawn to the event itself. I’m still blown away by the uniqueness of each and every wedding and I still get butterflies every time I pack my gear before each wedding.

Every wedding is uncommon. Every bride and groom is uncommon.