Margery H. Freeman

In 1943, at the age of 12, I bought my first camera from my parents. I really wanted a camera although I knew I couldn’t use it until after World War II was over because 35 mm slide film was not available to civilians. After the war I could get film, and my family traveled from Pennsylvania through the West for a number of summers. I used several different kinds of 35 mm film: Burke, Ansco, Kodak, and others. Only the Kodak held up well and all those taken in the late 1940s with Kodak film are as good today as when they were taken. All the others had to be thrown away after just a few years. Most of the pictures I took were in National Parks and most were landscapes, since the parks were quite empty. I lost this camera at Niagara Falls during my honeymoon.

For years with my young growing family I settled for snapshots. We raised our children in Seattle, Washington and Berkeley, California. My mother had become an excellent amateur photographer using slide film. She gave me her manual Nikon when she upgraded to a through the lens light-metered camera. Most of my pictures are taken with a manuel Nikon of one kind or another.

It is obvious from my pictures that I am most interested in people and their cultures and take pictures that intrigue me about the diversity of people and what they do.