Bonnie Alderfer

Photo by Dane Alderfer

ABOUT BONNIE

Photography found me when I was sixteen. It was the year I didn’t make performing dance in High School and I thought my life might be over. I had been dancing since I was four. But, I told myself it meant I was supposed to learn photography.

My mom bought me the first manual & autofocus Minolta at a garage sale and I hit the darkroom with Dr. Bishop, my photography teacher. He always wore overalls and was an early computer developer who had also been a protege of Ansel Adams. I spent the next 3 years in that darkroom learning from him and the smells of those chemicals still feel like home.

When I graduated High School, he awarded me “Best Photographer.” I went abroad and took my polaroid camera and all the film I could find before it was discontinued. I shot 6 rolls. Then, I decided to go college and learn something sociology. I got an M.A. in Sociology and created a course on Visual Sociology at the University of Washington. I found myself in the darkroom again there, at Nathan Hale School, and I almost cried the first time I smelled those chemicals. I sold my first photographs in a gallery, so I bought a Mamiya and thought it was finally to pursue photography more seriously.

Then, I met my husband, another photographer. Then, we started a manufacturing brand. We loved good old things and couldn’t find the kind of things we really liked, so we made them. We also made them so we could photograph them. We really just wanted to be photographers.

After we started a family, my cameras began to collect dust. I felt far from home, and I am, in Idaho. So, I started bringing a polaroid for me, to capture some of the beauty I was seeing every day. You can see some more of this work @instantdreamlight