Ode To Karcich Photography

Welcome to my first blog post! I've been thinking a lot about which subject is most worthy of my very first posting.....a particularly great wedding? A sweet newborn session? Something about my personal life? I've decided that it would be most appropriate to go back in time a little bit - well, a lot, actually - and pay homage to my dad's photography business, Karcich Photography. A time WAY before blogging, the internet, digital cameras.....and even before color film. So much has changed and one of my dad's many comments about my business says it best, "How will people find you if you're not in the phonebook?"

Funny thing is I have been holding onto two artifacts from Karcich Photography meant to be displayed in my home showroom but have been very indecisive about where to put them. Well, for starters I'll post them here.

The first artifact is my dad's old camera. Yes, it's an "accordian" camera. How neat is this thing? It's so fascinating to me to see how far photography has come, but when you really break it down, people have always been interested in creating interesting images and it's really just the tools that have changed. Lucky for me, the tools are just SO much easier to use nowadays. My dad is in awe (and I think a little jealous) of what I can do with my camera and without a darkroom.

More of my dad's quotes:

"You mean you can shoot a few hundred images without film? Where does it go?", my dad asks.

"When I shot weddings, people were happy with 60 pictures."

And my favorite: "Don't shoot black and white. It put me out of business!"

This stuff if priceless, don't you think?

The second artifact is this photograph (of course one of the artifacts has to be a picture). This is the front of my dad's studio, with yours truly in the carriage and my mom standing beside it. There are photos of me on the other side of the studio window (what can I say, my parents were very proud) and can you believe how far strollers styles have come? Anyway, this photo says a lot to me. First of all, like many photographs of my own kids, the parent that is the photographer is NOT in the picture. This image also elicits feelings from a different era - a photographer had no choice but to have a storefront studio back in the day. Karcich Photography was on bustling (and still bustling) Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens. That's some expensive real estate! I am fortunate enough to climb out of bed, go up a flight of stairs and see what my business has in store for me that day.

Today? I start a new era. Karcich Photography is on the internet. No more phonebook.

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