Photography by Arch C. Luther
Photography is another of those interests that have always been with me. My father was a newspaper editor (Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday Editor), and he introduced me to press photography at an early age. In 1942, he felt strongly enough about my interest in photography that he sacrificed to get me a real press camera for Christmas--a 4x5 Speed Graphic. I used that camera throughout high school and college and shot thousands of those 4" x 5" black-and-white negatives (I still have them). I had to do my own developing and printing because there weren't any photo labs like there are today.

After college, I became attracted by the convenience and low cost of 35mm photography, and went that way for the next 40 years or so. I still have the old 4x5 camera--it is on display in my office. Now, I use entirely digital photography--again attracted by still greater convenience and low cost. I have relegated the 35mm cameras to the museum along with the 4x5 camera.

My second-generation digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 990 (3.3 megapixels). Now I'm on my third generation of digital camera--a Canon EOS 20D SLR (8.2 megapixels). My first digital camera was a Kodak DC-120 (less than 1 megapixel). I shot over 2,500 pictures with that camera, and printed some of them up to 16" x 20". At that size, you have to stand back from the picture or it will be too grainy. But such prints are usable for display high up on the walls in my house, where you can't get too close to them. With the Nikon, I shot more than 4,000 pictures. I got the Canon 20D in May, 2005; I have taken more than 5,000 shots as of November 2006. With the Canon 20D, you can print big prints and look closely at them and they do not fall apart.

Of course, all the pictures on this Web site were shot with digital cameras. When I'm working on the site and I need a picture, if it's not already in my archives, I can go out and shoot it and five minutes later, it can be on the site. You can't beat that.

Once you have digital pictures, there are all kinds of things you can easily do: cropping, color correction, collages, effects, etc. For example, the picture of my grandchildren below (1998) is a composite of four photos--one of each boy, and the background. The shots of the boys were taken in New Hampshire, where they live, and the background of each of them was painted out. Then, they were composited over a background from California.

You can also easily retouch digital pictures to remove spots or effects such as the familiar red eye caused by flash. When you have created the perfect picture, you can send it over the Internet or print it at various sizes, depending on the capability of the printer you have. I do all this as a business, my card is below.

Pictures | Back