the light in the dark

My father had a darkroom when I was very small - next to the laundry  under our small weatherboard house . The red light, the chemical trays, the tongs. The darkroom was meant to be a small business but soon industrial d&p was easier and he got another job as a Singer sewing machine repair man. But he always had a camera - he was so proud of his Leica. Many an evening we were treated to slide shows. A thing of the past now but the smell of the machine and the click of the manually loaded slide trays is still alive in my psyche somewhere. At changeover time the light would go on and Mum or Dad would call out 'peanuts or lollies' a quote from Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C J Dennis.
Dad had a who where what approach. He'd photograph a view in a National Park and duly photograph the nearby sign with height above sea level and other information. As children he placed us squinting into the blazing Australian sun, (perhaps following the advice of European magazine and manuals where light was a delicate and rare resource as opposed to a Devil's Anvil).
The ones I remember best were multiple exposures of fireworks and trailing car tail lights. I thought of him as I uploaded a few recent shots.

for dad