About Me

I am over 60 years into my life journey. At the start I was thrust onto the road and I don't even remember the incident. No photographs exist of that moment, but intimate family members assure me it did happen and I was there. If there were photographs, I would believe it, wholeheartedly.

Images have always been easier for me to understand, to create, than written words. I might be a bit dyslexic, maybe even a bit inattentive ADHD but definitely had a difficult time reading and learning grammar. So writing took a back set to creating images and photography was my vehicle of choice.

I have been exposing photo-sensitive surfaces via cameras for some 50 years. When I began, I used my parents twin lens reflex Kodak Brownie. I was most fascinated with the ability to use the camera to tell lies, make visual illusions. The only problem was the parallax convergence of the two lenses. Once in the darkroom, I was smitten. Watching the latent image slowly appear on the photographic paper under the developer was magical.

As a high school graduation gift I received my very own 35mm camera, a Mamiya 1000TL single lens reflex with an internal match needle spot metering exposure system. I photographed several weddings with that camera and entered just as many art competitions. I moved up to a Mamiya 645 1000TL about 1980 using it to photograph several more weddings. I also photographed family, individual, school and business portraits.

Mid-August 1993 tragedy struck my family when our 13 year old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I did very little photography. He died almost two years later at age 15, mid-June. We were all terribly effected by his death.

The last day of 1995, as I sat eating dinner at the wedding reception of a friend's daughter, I spoke with a friend whose child I photographed years earlier. She pointed out that life was unpredictable and too short to live an inauthentic life. She continued that everyone should be truthful to their attributions. Our conversation both hit a nerve and flashed a blinding light.

She was the spark plug that started my creative engine running again. I picked up my 645 and began creating images. Only the cost of silver based film, its development and proofing kept me from pushing the pedal to the metal.

The last day of 2006, hours before the wedding reception of another friend's daughter, I purchased a Nikon D70s digital camera. No silver, no processing. My costs were flat. I have not used film since.

I produced several personal photographic projects since. I accept commercial work through North American Dispatch Photographers Network:a network of fast response photographers throughout North American.

Although I had difficulty reading and writing, communication with the written word has been in the back seat of my mind since I was ten years old. In the 80's, I called my neighborhood newspaper to see if I could capture some photographs for publication. They agreed only if I would also write the articles that accompanied the photographs. I agreed and completed several assignments. Concurrently, I completed two classes in journalism at a local university.  Soon after I was detoured by life without a new map. My writing moved to the back seat.

In April of 2011, I went into Philadelphia to photograph the moon at its closest point to the earth, perigee, in almost twenty years. I had a very interesting experience that night. Once I wrote, My adventure photographing the Super Moon in April 2011 my writing moved back up front into the driver's seat.

That incident was the key that started my writing motor running. Damentions is my vehicle on this journey. I will share my thoughts and interests as I travel down this long dusty highway. Capturing and creating images as the white lines and utility poles zip by. As I enter the last stretch of journey, I will create one post at time, one image at a time, to change at least one life at a time.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved