Backstory series: The history of my blog logo

My blog logo with parts dating back to 1984.

I like custom things especially when I have a role in their creation.

The base part of my website’s blog logo is the anthropomorphized camera body, which was my idea but the artwork is the creation of my best friend from undergrad school — RAP. At the time, she was making a living as a full-time freelance artist.

I also like cartoon characters with five fingers vs four.

And, because I played the trumpet from 6th through 11th grades (I wanted to sit in the stands with my non-band friends during my high school senior year), the pinky finger on my right hand is a bit askew at times because of the brass grip on the instrument near the valves.

Yes, I was the hand model and my Nikon F film camera with a 24mm lens equipped with a shade served as the camera reference.

At the time, I was working as the Director of Photography Workshops at a major camera store located in midtown Manhattan just steps away from Macy’s (the camera store is gone, now). I needed a logo for in-store posters to announce workshop opportunities for people visiting the store. It needed to be unique and eye catching. This is in 1984, which is the analog era, so the artwork had to be something I could physically put into a PMT machine and size larger or smaller, as needed. A drawing pen with ink and plain paper were at hand so that’s what was used.

We had just gotten one of our favorite meals: A deep fried-in-a-wok chicken from the Chinese take-out place on the corner and two pints of Haagen Dazs ice cream from the bodega whose door was next to the one that led into the stairwell to our fourth-floor, walk-up studio apartment — my flavor was chocolate. Hey, we were both svelte back then — thanks, in part, to the stairs — so such menu choices were of no concern. What we cared about was it was budget oriented and indulgent.

Beck’s drawing was a huge hit with the owner and my fellow staff members. What really counted was the public noticed my posters as they were competing with the likes of large and colorful publicity materials from Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Kodak, Fuji, etc.

Fast forward to 2019 when I was toying with the idea of using the drawing in some way for my brick-and-mortar photo art gallery and portrait studio. This is when I digitized it then added the front facing look of a lens I own, a posterized color environmental portrait of myself taken by a local acquaintance with her cell phone (I’m wearing my photojournalism vest and holding one of my Nikon DSLRs equipped with a pro Nikon flash that I use for daytime fill), and some type.

In February of this year, I unearthed this prototype graphic and pondered. Yes, this would work perfectly for my website blog! Plus, I had already created a Facebook page named “Photography Through My Lens by Debbie Wolfe,” so there’s that.

And, now you know the backstory behind the logo for my blog.