It all started when I was about 5 or 6 years old and I got my hands on a well used Kodak Brownie Target Six-20. I would wander the neighborhood, carefully selecting the 12 exposures, and then run the roll of black and white 620 film to the Fotomat in the parking lot of the nearby grocery store to get it processed. I eventually progressed to a Kodak 110 Instamatic, that I earned by selling newspaper subscriptions, and then in 1977 my parents gave me an Olympus OM-1 SLR for Christmas.
The OM-1 opened up a whole new world for me. It was a real camera and felt solid in my hands, but it was also a completely manual camera. No autofocus. No autoexposure. It forced me to learn the relationship between shutter speeds and f-stops, how to control depth of field, stop action, or create motion blur. I had to think while using it and I learned to see the world around me through its viewfinder. More often than not the final result wasn't what I had envisioned but I knew that with practice I would learn how to transfer what I saw in my minds eye onto film. Even though the medium is no longer film after thirty-plus years I am still practicing and striving to improve.
Thank you for looking and I hope you enjoy my work.
Rick Pisio
Rick Pisio joined Pixels.com Licensing on August 15th, 2014.
