My parents grew up during the Great Depression. During World War II, my dad volunteered and served in the Marine Corps, along with all of my uncles (Navy, Army) and just about every other able bodied young man at the time. My grandmother worked in a munitions factory. At some point, my mom worked as a nurse at Oak Ridge where they refined fissionable material for the Manhattan Project. Since my dad's outfit was slated for invasion of the Japanese mainland, you could say that he was saved by the Bomb. After the war he finished college and became an electrical engineer.
  When I was born in 1957, our family settled in a suburban town north of Chicago. It was peaceful and at a time when people could leave the keys in the car, their houses unlocked and kids were outside all day when they weren't in school. We did have a black and white television set in the living room though, which served as a window to things like the first men walking on the moon and shows like Walter Cronkite's Twenty First Century or the first season of Star Trek. There was a piano in our house too. Dad mostly played Boogie Woogie riffs or would do Cy Walter's Birth of the Blues, where as my mom liked to sight read George Shearing. Since dad loved Big Band Jazz, sometimes Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw or Errol Garner could be heard on the phonograph. Mom played some classical records from time to time. I remember carrying a cheap little five transistor radio to grade school one day and hearing an instrumental song called Telstar issuing from the little speaker. It was the Space Age.
  In the sixties my two sisters had a small collection of 45rpm records, singles from artists like Strawberry Alarm Clock, Left Bank, Petula Clark, Crosby Stills & Nash, Simon & Garfunkel, Beatles, Beach Boys and so on. Our family had a tape recorder with three inch reels which I had fun with, manipulating sounds by changing speeds or sometimes making radio plays with friends. I also tried my hand at photography using my older sister's Kodak Pony to shoot a few black and whites. I started playing cornet in grade school, switching to lower register brass instruments later on, but never found complete enjoyment in them. By the time I reached high school in 1973, after our family had made the big move to Dallas, I was sneaking my sister's classical guitar out of her room and learning to play claw hammer like the councelors I'd seen playing folk music at summer camp. One sister had a very good natured boyfriend who gave me a bass guitar. To this day I still sometimes use three note triplet runs like he showed me when I was introduced to that instrument. My high school had some young North Texas State graduates teaching music there, so I learned a bit of theory and even got to experiment with an early synthesizer. I got my first 35mm SLR camera during high school too, even set up a small darkroom under the stairwell at home. During my senior year I spent many a summer afternoon riding my dad's Kawasaki trail bike, photographing north Dallas where it was sprawling into the countryside.
  During college I got my first six string electric guitar and spent many hours recording modular synthesizers on to various analog tape formats in the student music labs where I also did some installation and maintenance work. After graduating in 1982 with a degree in radio-television and film, I had my heart set on working as a recording engineer, but ended up working as an assistant to technical staffers at the university in Austin, fixing audio visual stuff and electronic equipment of all kinds. Eventually I became the sole support technician for a pretty big paging system and moderate sized two-way radio set up. After fifteen years or so, paradigm shifts in technology pulled the rug out from under and the radio systems work dried up. So now I do any miscellaneous electronic repair work that comes along, even live PA work and recording from time to time.
  I've played in a few bands, all great experiences, though fleeting. Now that RAM based music file players and high speed computer networking are everywhere, I thought a web site might be a fun way to finally share some of the creative ideas that have come to me over the years. Sometimes they'll arrive in the fog of early morning dreams or while in a trance after many hours of recording. My approach to photographic composition is a relatively unconscious process that's just evolved over time. Admittedly, my self cathartic expressions can be ambiguous or surreal. Some among you may find resonance in them; if not, feel free to ponder in eternal puzzlement, or even dismiss them entirely.

PEACE

Copyright 2005 Schuyler Hupp All Rights Reserved