About
At first this might seem like an odd name for a photography blog, but it is in respect for my late grandfather William F. Mertsky (1915-2004). He was a professional photographer in Chicago who got his start in photography back in the 1930's for his school newspaper. I was told that he was making machine gun parts for the world war II war effort when he struck his head on a pipe when he forgot to duck. This injury caused a calcification "bump" on his forehead that was very noticeable. Growing up, I recall asking him about the bump on his forehead and he would reply "Didn't you know? I'm a unicorn!".
He loved to take self portraits, using them to experiment on new techniques. One of the ones he used to show off (pictured below) was one he would joke was that of him and his brothers. He captured several of these in the studio and overlaid them with the enlarger. What is interesting about this is the skill necessary to pull this off in a pre-digital darkroom, fully exploiting the darkness requiring only fairly simple masking. It is this image that is the inspiration behind the name of this blog.
My grandfather was extremely handy, and would often craft his own light modifiers and anything else that he needed to push his photography further. He had an eye for small details that others would often overlook, which generally meant a half mile hike to the falls would turn into a 5 mile hike while he looked for just the right branch for my grandmother to hold barely in the shot to create the perfect "natural" frame. I'm pretty sure that some of the branches were not just picked off the forest floor but "liberated" from the tree.
I recall visiting him as a young adult, and he took me into his bedroom, opened up his cedar chest and brought out some of his favorite pictures. His eyes lit up as we went through them and he told me the story of each of them. One in particular I thought absolutely amazing. Being a portrait photographer was hard work, but he discovered something that others didn't think of and it was the one thing that would bring in just enough extra money to make Christmas just a little nicer for my mom and her two siblings. At the very first sign of snow, he would get up before dawn and make his way to the more expensive houses in Chicago. Just as dawn would bring light, he would take architectural portraits of the large homes all dressed in fresh powder. He had to work fast, and could only get a few houses in before the light would get to high in the sky and people would start to shovel their walks. A few weeks later, after the snow was all ugly and black (from the very poor auto emissions), he would return with prints and offer them as Christmas cards or enlarged for framing.
Sadly, he suffered from dementia late in life and most of his favored pictures that he had not given to other family members were destroyed. While it is saddening to loose his favorite works, I do feel blessed to have had the opportunity to see them and to hear the stories. It continues, to this day, to be an inspiration and a reason why I choose to continue to pursue photography as a hobby.
The purpose of this blog will be to be a platform to teach others about the wonders of photography, provide reviews of some of the equipment I have used, offer techniques, and even look back on how things were done in the sharing of more of my grandfathers stories and images.
He loved to take self portraits, using them to experiment on new techniques. One of the ones he used to show off (pictured below) was one he would joke was that of him and his brothers. He captured several of these in the studio and overlaid them with the enlarger. What is interesting about this is the skill necessary to pull this off in a pre-digital darkroom, fully exploiting the darkness requiring only fairly simple masking. It is this image that is the inspiration behind the name of this blog.
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| William F. Mertsky - Self Portrait "Me and my brothers" on canvas. Taken in the early 1980's. |
I recall visiting him as a young adult, and he took me into his bedroom, opened up his cedar chest and brought out some of his favorite pictures. His eyes lit up as we went through them and he told me the story of each of them. One in particular I thought absolutely amazing. Being a portrait photographer was hard work, but he discovered something that others didn't think of and it was the one thing that would bring in just enough extra money to make Christmas just a little nicer for my mom and her two siblings. At the very first sign of snow, he would get up before dawn and make his way to the more expensive houses in Chicago. Just as dawn would bring light, he would take architectural portraits of the large homes all dressed in fresh powder. He had to work fast, and could only get a few houses in before the light would get to high in the sky and people would start to shovel their walks. A few weeks later, after the snow was all ugly and black (from the very poor auto emissions), he would return with prints and offer them as Christmas cards or enlarged for framing.
Sadly, he suffered from dementia late in life and most of his favored pictures that he had not given to other family members were destroyed. While it is saddening to loose his favorite works, I do feel blessed to have had the opportunity to see them and to hear the stories. It continues, to this day, to be an inspiration and a reason why I choose to continue to pursue photography as a hobby.
The purpose of this blog will be to be a platform to teach others about the wonders of photography, provide reviews of some of the equipment I have used, offer techniques, and even look back on how things were done in the sharing of more of my grandfathers stories and images.
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| William F. Merstsky - Self Portrait 1973 |
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