June 2001
President's
Message
Portrait of ...
Portrait Of ...
Will Klein
It all started 57 years ago when my mother took me shopping in center city Philadelphia. On this particular Saturday we went to Lit Brothers. I can still remember their small camera department and telling my mother I would like a camera. They had some very inexpensive black plastic 35 mm cameras called Sparticas.
It was not long after that I started developing black and white film in my basement. My instruction came from a little Kodak book that cost fifteen cents. I will never forget the overwhelming excitement that I felt when I made my first contact print and saw the image developing. Well, I was hooked at that point and have been into photography ever since.
I shoot both medium format and 35mm, do my own Ilfochrome and black & white enlarging, and have recently started doing digital photography. There is no substitute for high resolution scans. The whole field of digital photography is very challenging and interesting.
My career of 31 years has been
in the medical manufacturing field, specializing in ophthalmic surgical
equipment. I am involved with a charitable eye organization called SEE
(Surgical Eye Expeditions). As part of my charitable contribution I have
traveled on SEE Surgical Missions in Mongolia, the Amazon, China, Eastern
Europe, India, Nepal, Africa and South America. It is not always purely
charity because I get to see the countries in a very special way and can
photograph on a very personal level. ?