Who Am I?
My name is Dave Krueger and I live in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. I am a retired electrical engineer who does traditional darkroom photography as a hobby. My engineering career started when I was 32, but I had my own darkroom by the time I was 16. While I briefly operated a part time commercial photography business catering to local technology companies, I no longer do any photography for hire and do not actively market my work. I shoot purely for enjoyment. I have occasionally exhibited my work in local venues and have had images presented in print and web based periodicals. Currently, the biggest display of my work is in my home where pictures hang on virtually every wall.
About half of my house is devoted to photography. I have a studio, darkroom, and frame shop and not a week goes by that I am not engaged in some photography related activity.
Traditional darkroom photography is both an art and craft. While hardly amaster at the art, I love the craft. Darkroom technique can be learned quickly, but may take years to master and, because of the additional work, has a different dynamic than modern digital photography. Traditional photographers tend to shoot fewer frames, are limited by the materials in use, and use different image manipulation tools. While film has been expereincing a slight resurgence in popularity of late, darkroom printing is only practiced by a fraction of analog enthusiasts.
The images on these pages are straight unedited scans of darkroom prints made from 35mm, medium format, and 4×5 large format black and white negatives. Darkroom print manipulations are limited to contrast adjustment, cropping, and burning/dodging. I most commonly make 8″ x 10″ resin coated prints for archiving and scanning and 16″ x 20″ fiber based prints for framing. All of my prints, RC and fiber, are now selenium toned. Most prints are stored in archival boxes and handled only with cotton gloves. Yes, I am obsessive. A small minority of prints are scanned and added to one of my two photography websites. An even smaller number find their way onto the walls of my home, replacing older images.
If you've visited my blog, you may have guessed that I engage in projects related to photography. I like to build and modify the tools and environment of my hobby. My engineering nature and tendancy toward regimentation and analysis drives me to research topics, collect references, and churn out enless notes and records of my projects which are useful for blog articles.
In addition to this website, I have additional work (originally exhibited on a Flickr account) posted at City Shadows website. Like the photos here, they are also scanned from black and white darkroom prints.
On Social Networks as:
- @davekrueger on bsky
- @dkruegerphoto on X
Non-photography related biographical details
Now in my 70s, I have come to accept that ASD has colored my perceptions and made interpersonal relationships awkward since early childhood. To say I'm "not a people person" would be an understatement. But, a common component of that psychology is being quite comfortable not being around other people and nothing makes that easier than retirement in combination with hobbies that demand little direct interaction with others. In fact, haviing grossly underestimated retirement, I now regret not having done it earlier.
- Grew up in Brookfield, Wisconsin
- Dropped out of high school in junior year and joined the US Navy at age 17
- 7 years in the Navy as an Electronics Technician in California, Texas, and Iceland (never stationed on a ship)
- Post Navy Education:
- Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from University of Nevada, Reno. GPA: 3.5, Paid for with GI Bill
- Post Navy jobs:
- Lynch Communications Systems (Reno, NV), Technician
- Itec (Huntsville, AL), Design Engineer
- Phoenix Microsystems (Huntsville, AL), Design Engineer
- Txport (Huntsville, AL), Design Engineer
- Adtran (Huntsville, AL), Design Engineer
- Retired since 2017 (Huntsville, AL)David Krueger