SARANAC LAKE — The Canon Demi, a compact and luxe half-frame 35mm camera, hit the 1963 Japanese market for 10,800.

For an additional 1,000, one could purchase the case.

Another 300 scored the wrist strap.

In 1968, Barry Lobdell picked up the camera for $20 in an Ocean View, Virginia pawnshop while on leave from the U.S. Air Force on a visit to his mother, Nancy.

The Demi’s half-frame format allowed him to shoot 72 exposures on a 36 exposure roll of film.

Lobdell used the economical camera for several years, and thus began his photography odyssey showcased in his September exhibition, “Fifty Years with a Camera: Photography by Barry Lobdell” at the Adirondack Artists Guild in Saranac Lake.

Opening reception will be from 5 to 8 p.m. on September 2.

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Backstory

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Born in Syracuse, Lobdell worked on fishing boats in Ocean View as a teen before he joined the U.S. Air Force right after high school.

“Going to college was not a tradition in my family,” he said.

“The service seemed like a good alternative to me, fool that I was. It was during Vietnam and everything. But I managed to get through the Vietnam War without having to go anyplace besides the United States. After I got out of the service, that’s when I got married initially and then went to college. That’s when I started really getting into the photography seriously.”

In 1972 at SUNY Albany, Lobdell bought his first SLR and signed up for several courses where he learned the technical aspects of conventional darkroom photography and was exposed to criticism and a deeper understanding of the art of photography.

At Maine Photographic Workshops, he attended one given by photographer Eva Rubenstein, which explored “why we take the photographs we take.”

“I was looking through a lot of photography books in those days quite often, you know, just seeing what good photographs were,” he said.

“I came across some of hers, so I recognized her name. I was looking through a catalog from the workshop there, and I spotted her name and thought, ‘Oh, well that would be interesting.’ And, it was. No question of that. It was a very creative week. I just enjoyed it a lot, but it’s the only lengthy workshop that I’ve ever been to.”

As a self-employed photographer, Lobdell shot weddings, portraits, and a wide variety of other subjects including a 12-year stint of “novelty souvenir” photography at Saratoga Race Track.

In his full-time job, he was a New York State staff development specialist generating photography and video production work for educational and training purposes.

“My father-in-law was a bigwig in the state,” he said.

“So, he managed to get me placed, and then I had to take some exams later on to make it legitimate and everything. So that’s how that happened.”

Lobdell relocated to the Adirondacks in 1996, retired in 2002, and has had a camera — three digital cameras or the ever present iPhone — in hand ever since.

“I’ve been doing photography and doing the photography that I wanted to do, which is what I’m inspired by whenever and wherever I am,” he said.

“That can be lots of different things of course. This exhibit sort of proves that I think. I knew at least in the beginning of the year that I would have a show in September, so I was thinking about what to do. It suddenly dawned on me that it was 2022, and it had actually been 50 years since I took my first course at SUNY Albany. So OK, let’s do 50 years.”

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Quarter-century peaks

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Approximately half of the photos, mainly in black-and-white, highlight his “street photography” in the first quarter century of his career.

“Which I define as candid photography of people and things we make meaning of — buildings and whatever,” he said.

“The second part of my career, which would be the next 25 years, has been mainly landscape. I moved up to the Adirondacks, and there just weren’t as many streets as I’ve been used to in the past.”

Lobdell counts the works in this exhibit among his favorites and all of them are newly created, whether from original negatives and slides or digital files, according to a press release.

The images were made with a variety of cameras, both film-based and digital. Specialized cameras among his hardware have been Hasselblad and Noblex panoramic cameras as well as a Fujifilm X100 model, which is modified for infrared shooting.

“I had it modified so it only shoots infrared photography,” he said.

“It is used for various things. Most people think of infrared as a heat-sensitive thing for analyzing buildings and stuff, but that’s not what I use it for. My use is strictly for the artistic effect that it creates or helps me create.”

His photography has been featured in exhibitions ranging from Texas to Massachusetts, as well as most galleries within and near the Blue Line.

He has taken awards in many competitions, including Best of Show at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, the Gibson Gallery and the NorthWind Fine Arts Gallery.

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51 works

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A great deal has changed in the photographic realm over the last 50 years, but the basics remain the same.

“There are certain rules to composition, etc., etc., all the regular things with photography, and developing an eye, developing a sensitivity for looking at things in terms of finding something that will be an interesting photograph,” he said.

Film stopped a while ago for Lobdell. “I really like the versatility that the digital gives you,” he said.

“Working in Photoshop, you use a lot of the same techniques actually that I used to use in the darkroom like burning and dodging, that kind of stuff. But you can do it much more precisely with PhotoShop or other programs like that.”

There are 51 works in the show.

“One to grow on,” he said.