Dad's Self-Portrait Age 16, 1936

Adolph gained an interest in photography at age 15 after seeing a friend at the local pool hall taking photos. That year he built a darkroom in his parents' basement and obtained chemicals at a discount through a friend's mother who worked at a local film company. Below is a self-portrait he took with a pin-hole camera. For those of you that don't know, a pin-hole camera is nothing more than a box with a pin hole for a lens and a sheet of film taped on the inside of the back of the box. The shutter speed is determined by how long the hole is uncovered or the lights of a dark room are put on.

Below is the darkroom he built. This was done completely with hand tools. Later he moved the entire dark room to the one and only house he owned at Keenan Drive. It was under the stairwell. I could not bare to trash his work and now have most of it at my house put to other uses.