About Dominic R. Sondy

My imaging career began at age ten working for my father. Dad was a full-time public school art teacher. He photographed weddings on weekends and kids at various summer camps during Summer recess. I was recruited to work, without pay, in his black and white darkroom. Back then, making black and white prints, was a chemical process. Strangely enough, my career started at the end of that process: washing the chemicals off and drying prints. It wasn’t long before I was mixing chemicals, developing prints and processing 4X 5 sheet film. During our peak year, two ears later, my father’s side business produced just over 10,000 prints. The reward for share of the effort was one well-used Speed Graphic. Uncle Ralph, a General Motors illustrator, encouraged my interest in drawing and tutored me in the techniques used in ink drawings using ink-wash shading. Those techniques proved useful while leaning the tools in Photoshop.

My images were nationally published, for the first time, in 1969. After serving three months as a  dog-faced grunt, I was transferred to a position as a correspondent for the First Infantry Division Public Information Office in Vietnam. Details from those times are chronicled in a photo illustrated book titled Saigon Shuffle 2.0. I’ve also written Last Ark of the Railroad. It is a photo illustrated book about the historic (now retired) Great Lakes railroad ferry S.S. City of Milwaukee. Both of these titles are self-published and available on Amazon.

I began working in show business, as a staff photographer, in a family owned Trade Show Photography company (Trade Shows are referred to as “Industrials” in show business terminology). We photographed 50 Shows a year at locations all over the country. Eventually I achieved the title of “Chief Photographer”; co-ordinating a staff of three full time photographers while additionally employing multiple free-lancers. I loved this work because of its diversity. The shows themes were diverse: medical shows, a variety of manufacturing shows and even show business shows. The subjects we photographed at these shows were equally diverse: exhibits, products, portraits of people, countless speakers, events and editorial images all documented in small and medium film formats.

During the transition to digital imaging, my skill levels evolved along with new equipment. Good riddance to the old toxic chemical process. Photoshop became the new darkroom. I freelanced, changing my subject interest from Trade Shows to Car Shows, and became the official photographer for the Bay Harbor Concours d' Elegance. Worked dozens of other car shows and had images featured in Collectable Automobile Magazine.

Currently I am still creating new images, while refining my organizational abilities. Hundreds of past images, originally shot on film, have been digitally converted and blended in with twenty years of digital files. The resulting library contains thousands of images.