The Lakeshore

Queen’s University and

the beginnings of my Photography

Although I began taking pictures in High School I did not really become proficient at it until I went off to Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. This was where I began my love affair with cameras and the printed image. Unfortunately, I am somewhat compulsive and frequently my photography came ahead of my studies.

It was at Queens that, instead of working alone in my improvised basement darkroom, I suddenly had real darkrooms to use, with enlargers and equipment I could never afford myself, real publications to print my work, and real friends who shared my interest. 

My photography back then was all black and white: it was inexpensive and the developing was very tolerant of error. 

Following Henri Cartier-Bresson’s dictum that “your first 10,000 photographs are your worst”, I took lots of pictures; pictures by the 100 foot roll. Lots of them! 

And here we have some of those images: images from my earliest photographic days. This is a tribute to the beauty of Queens University that gave me so much.

Queen’s University is located on Lake Ontario just where it empties into the St. Lawrence River. The campus is right on the lake in the oldest part of the town. It is not possible to overstate the beauty of the place in those days.

Each winter I was there the Lake Ontario froze over and we had miles of ice on which to skate and play. Cars drove on the ice, small planes landed on it and students packed parachutes on the ice and then jumped out of their plane to land on the ice and repeat the whole process over again. Life is so good when you are immortal.

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