Occupaion: Graphics/photography/retired Interests: not set Biography: Photography has been a lifetime obsessed for me and a savior at the same time.My first camera was a box camera that used 616 roll film size that was hard to find in the 50s and impossible to find now. My hands shook when I bought my first precision camera, A 35mm Yashica single lens reflex for $160.00 brought with money I made cleaning bricks with a hatchet. I have spent more money on Equipment, film, printing paper and all the rest that is required. photography also gave me discipline and the job skills that have carried me throughout life.
U.S. Navy
Photographer 3rd Class · 1963 to 1967
I was a photographer aboard the USS Ranger CVA 61 Attack Aircraft Carrier between the years 1964 to 1967 stationed in the Tonkin Golf. It was when aboard the ranger that my work was published in something other than a high school year book. Photographs I made of the first American POW to escape the North Vietnamese and be returned to the Ranger where published In the Saturday Evening Post
December 3, 1966 issue in a story titled I Escaped From a Red Prison. Years later a movie was made about his capture and escape. The Photographs may not have been great, but I was the only photographer that got any. A 35 mm camera earned no respect then because the top of the line Nikon was less than $200.00 and everyone had one, or one of the other top brands. I used a 4x5 inch Speed Graphic With flash bulbs the size of light bulbs on this assignment and people got out of your way, that camera meant business and the slightest poke to the ribs with the speed graphic got their attention and out of your way no matter the rank. Sorry Sir Im just trying to do my job always received cooperation from sometimes intimidating people.
grantcw@live.com Website:
http://grantwesley.smugmug.com/