David Terao

Photography has been my passion for about 50 years (off and on).  My first “real” camera was an Olympus OM-1 film camera that I bought in 1974.  When I first got started, I was intrigued by the entire photographic process from shooting black & white film, to developing the negatives, and making B&W prints in a darkroom.  When I married and had a son, I became the family photographer responsible for taking color snapshots of his growing up.  In the late 1990’s, my wife started making jewelry, and she needed photos of her pieces to submit for jurying and entering shows.  At this time, I still shot slides although digital cameras were just starting to become available to the consumer market.  The digital-camera evolution both intrigued and scared me.  Change is always hard for me.  Of course, to accommodate my wife’s needs, I absolutely had to buy a state-of-the-art digital camera – a 3MP Canon Powershot G1.  But, I soon discovered that almost everything I learned about the photographic process had changed.  Digital photography was an entirely new and different world!

I was born and grew up in the south side of Chicago in the working-class neighborhood of Hyde Park (which has now become known as the former residence of Barack and Michelle Obama).  Because Chicago is in my DNA, I admire the candid, 1950’s-1960’s street photography of Vivian Maier (also a Chicagoan).  I lived in Chicago for my first 30 years.  After graduating from the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) with a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering, I worked at an architect-engineering firm in Chicago designing nuclear power plants.  At the time of the Three-Mile-Island nuclear plant accident, I moved to the Washington DC area to work for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  At the NRC, I worked as a technical engineer and manager regulating the design and operation of nuclear power plants.  I retired 10 years ago after more than 34 years of government service.

For the past 25 years, I’ve been photographing jewelry for my wife and her many metal-smith friends as a hobby (and to re-learn how to use the right side of my brain).  Shooting jewelry is a whole world in itself, and my natural photographic inclination also gravitates towards close-up/macro nature photography (e.g., bugs and flowers) although I’ve always been interested in other photographic genres.  But, while I was working, I didn’t have much free time to explore photography other than jewelry.  When I retired in 2014, one of the first things I decided to do was to join a camera club.  I googled “camera clubs in the Wash DC area,” and discovered the Silver Spring Camera Club was just a couple miles from my house at that time – two venues ago at a church at University Ave and Colesville Road.  When I read the SSCC website, I was surprised to find how often the club met – almost weekly.  When I joined the SSCC in September 2014, I regularly participated in the monthly guest speaker meetings, educational nights and photo competitions.  I also ran the club’s electronic photo competitions for 5 years.  I have learned so much from those activities.  But, in recent years, life has gotten in the way, and I’m not able to be as active in camera club activities as I used to be.  

Nowadays, I use a variety of mirrorless cameras when shooting.  Maybe it’s a throwback to my film days, but I recently discovered the joy using old, vintage lenses adapted onto modern mirrorless camera bodies.  For post-processing, I use primarily Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop as well as third-party plug-ins (e.g., DxO and Topaz Labs software).  To some it might seem strange, but I actually do enjoy post-processing.  It’s like having a digital darkroom.  I also use an inkjet printer to complete my involvement in the entire digital photographic process.