THIS is a story!

I was visiting my favorite museum, looking at three different photographic exhibits.  I decided to take a break and get coffee in the little dining area.  It was pretty busy, so instead of sitting at an empty table, I sat at a table with this fellow.  At some point we started a conversation and I asked him what brought him to the museum.  His name is Mark and he   said he works in the basement, and he comes up to see sunlight every once in a while! The short version of the story is that he specializes in "process history" which means different photographic processes used since the invention of photography.  He invited me down to his lab and I got an amazing history lesson in processes I had only heard of, like Daguerreotypes, tintypes, and wet and dry collodion processes, and early printing processes like Gum bichromate, Platinum Prints and Carbon prints!   It was an incredible lesson about the beginnings of photography and the early ways of recording images and printing them.  He was so generous with his time and knowledge, and we stayed and talked until the museum closed!  What a day!  What great luck that I ran into him in such a random way!