Some photographers strictly love the process of capturing the image; thats why they chose this profession.  I'm a little bit different because I'm very old school.  To me, the appeal is the ENTIRE process from capture to portrait delivery.

When I started in photography, the consummate professional didn't just do the image capture, but created prints in the darkroom as well.  I still feel this way; its just not the same if I haven't actually created the final portrait myself.

It goes further than mere enjoyment on my part though.  By creating these portraits myself, I can select the very finest materials at each step of the way; the finest 100% cotton archival papers from Europe, the best archival varnish and so on and so on.  I'm not restricted to any one set of products, I can pick and choose from the best of each.

But the most important reason for doing all this is the same reason we do everything, because your story deserves to be preserved forever.

Hayward