In high school, I learned how to make photographs, not just snap pictures. We shot exclusively in Ilford FP4 and HP5 black and white film. And my school was lucky enough to have a darkroom — complete with about 8 or 9 enlargers — for developing film and printing photographs. I enjoyed those photo classes and thrived at the “hobby.” I spent all my free time in the photo lab. My year book was even signed by a girl who said she’d never forget me using the light from an enlarger in the darkroom to read a book for English class. Good times! After graduating high school, I decided to continue my education and enrolled in “college.” I’ll say college for lack of a better word. It was really the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

Of course, my family couldn’t afford to send me to an institute of higher learning, so I went to see Satan and applied for financial aid. I received some Pell Grant money, then Satan had his way with my virgin anus as I signed on the dotted line for Federdal student loans. Of course, this was the 1980s, and I guess the government was handing out student loans to any deadbeat with a Bic pen and the ability to sign their name… So with tuition paid, for the immediate future, I was enrolled in classes.

One of the first things I did before classes started in July of 1985 was sell my Nikon FG at a camera shop in Philadelphia. I don’t remember what I got for it, but it was not nearly enough to cover the camera I bought to replace it. With some monetary help from my grandfather, I got a new Nikon F3 High Point, arguably the best manual-focus, professional level 35mm SLR camera of its time. I’m going to say it was the best manual camera Nikon ever made, and I never owned an F or F2. So there!

My F3 was awesome! I loved that camera. I babied it like it was made of glass, even though Nikon professional cameras have a world-renowned reputation as being the most rugged cameras ever built. I was only 19 at the time, and it was the most expensive thing I ever owned at nearly $900 for the camera body alone (no lens). That’s over $1700 2008 dollars! But I recall the F3 actually costing more than a grand at camera shops in Philadelphia at the time, which is why I bought through mail order. I always drooled over the multi-page print ads in the back of the photography magazines, for they usually had great deals on gear. So when it came time to buy my Nikon F3, I called the number of one of the biggest print ads around… B&H Photo. We’re talking 1985, people! There was no Internet. Well, there was, but it wasn’t available to us peons yet. There was no ResellerRatings or customer reviews. There was only credit cards and faith, or C.O.D., baby. I used C.O.D. because there was no money exchange until the UPS driver showed up on my door step with what I ordered… and I always opened the box in front of the driver before he got the cash. I wasn’t going to pay nearly a $1000 for a boxed masonry brick. Fuck that! I would use B&H several other times — and C.O.D. — when I bought an MD4 motor drive, two lenses, and a handle-mount flash. I don’t have a picture of my old Nikon F3, but it looked almost exactly like this Nikon F3.

When school started, it was great! I was surrounded by like-minded students, learning and experiencing large- and medium format cameras as well as my own 35mm camera, color, design, visual expression, B&W and color darkroom skills, as well as photo retouching and mounting. I also learned a lot about location and studio photography, you know, with strobes and umbrellas. I really enjoyed the classes, and stuck with it for almost two years.

However, life has a tendency of getting in the way. One thing that burned my ass were a couple of the instructors at the school. I got the impression they were full-time photographers, part-time teachers. If they were hired for some project, they wouldn’t show up. I can recall many times sitting outside a class room or a studio — listening to Howard Stern on WYSP — waiting for the instructor to show up and unlock the door. Several of us went to see the “Dean,” but were told that the school is looking for a substitute. Excellent. We’re paying good money for tuition, and they’re going to find us some Peggy Hill to lern us sum pitcher takin’. But I can’t blame the school completely. I was an impatient prick then as I am now, and didn’t stick around for a substitute. Tuition was expensive. Instead of sitting in a hallway outside a studio, I got a sales job at my local Radio Shack, and never looked back. That was the beginning of the end.

It wasn’t long before I had a second job making signs with computers and vinyl at a place called SIGNprinters (yes, that’s the actual company, still in business). Well, one thing led to another, and before long, I was finalizing plans in 1989 to leave Pennsylvania and move to Washington. In fact, to fund my trip to Washington, I sold my Nikon F3 gear… a decision I still regret to this day, realized when I drove over Snoqualmie Pass on I-90. School was the furthest thing from my mind, so too was repaying my student loans.

Long story short, defaulted student loans have a way of following you forever and fucking up your credit. It took several years — more like ten — but the Federal government tracked my ass down. With the help of a few Nazi debt collectors, they held my feet to the fire until we worked out a repayment plan. I was supposed to enter something called “rehabilitation” after jumping through their hoops, but the assholes at the collection agency never reported my rehabilitation to the Department of Education. Every year they took my tax refunds, and when President Bush gave us stimulus checks, they took those, too. I didn’t think this year would be any different, so when I got my W-2 from The Company, I quickly filed my return electronically. I simply wanted it out of the way, so the quicker I filed, the quicker ED would get his goddamn money.

I had a doctor’s appointment on January 30, which meant I didn’t have to commute to Seattle and could sleep in. Around 6:30 that morning, a text message from my bank woke me up. A deposit greater than $10 was just made. In my groggy, just-woke-up state, I was quite concerned when the amount of the deposit was several hundred dollars less than my pay check. What the hell, man? Rubbing my eyes and looking at my phone again, it hit me; that amount was my tax refund! Holy shit, Maynard! ED let the IRS give me my refund!

Tina and I spent most of that day discussing what to spend it on. I knew I didn’t want to nickel-and-dime it on bills, or dinners, or gasoline. My first thought was tires. My truck is going to need tires pretty soon, and the tax refund would just about pay for them. Tina suggested I spend it on something fun since it’s the first refund I’ve received in a long time, and I deserve something fun. I looked at in-dash DVD players with GPS navigation for the truck, but the good ones are too pricey. While watching a TiVoed television show, Ashton Kutcher graced our screen in a commercial for the Nikon D90 camera. That was it! Buy a digital SLR camera! Oh, the sweet irony of buying a camera with my tax refund that should have gone to pay my photography student loan. Simply perfect! Of course, when I started pricing cameras online, I ended up at bhphotovideo.com, where I ended up buying my new Nikon D90 nearly 24 years after buying my Nikon F3 from them. Good ol’ B&H. Talk about coming full-circle.

My new baby arrived a week ago, nine agonizing days after I placed the order. You can have free shipping or fast shipping, but you can’t have free and fast shipping, bastards. It was all good. I was scheduled for pager duty anyway, and couldn’t be far from a computer. During my UPS-imposed wait, I did a bunch of reading and downloaded (illegally, shhhh) a couple videos about the D90. I also started a wish list, which I’m sure will change frequently over the coming weeks and months. I even joined a Nikon User Community, as well as a few other photography forums.

I’ve been out shooting with the camera only once so far. I woke up early Saturday and drove to Anacortes to capture the oil refineries in the dark. The images turned out okay, but not as cool as I thought they would. Shooting digital — beyond point-and-shoot — is all new to me, so it’s bound to take a while to get good at it. From the refineries, I drove to Deception Pass Bridge to wait for the sunrise. I have no idea what I was thinking. It’s Washington. It’s winter. It was cloudy. Silly me! I managed to get some decent shots of the bridge, though. Then I drove back to town and took some photographs of the Dutch windmill in City Beach Park. You can check out my “First Shoot” photographs at a brand new subdomain of wafwot.com: http://photography.wafwot.com.

Well, that’s the story on my photography school days, and the news of my new digital SLR. You may also check out the few photographs I have left from school at http://www.wafwot.com/blog/photography. I’ll be putting all worthy photographs at the new photography.wafwot.com, so keep an eye out.