Kure Beach Pier. Photo by David Lamanno.

By Deirdre Parker Smith

dp1@salisburypost.com

Using an antique, large-format camera, Spencer's David Lamanno has won an honorable mention in Our State magazine's third annual Reader Photo Contest.

His black-and-white image of Kure Beach Pier was entered in the black and white category.

Lamanno, who works as merchandise manager at Barnes & Noble in Winston-Salem, says he's been interested in photography for the last 15 years or so.

He has two antique cameras, an 8-by-10-inch Kodak, "probably from the early '20s," and a 5-by-7-inch format.

"They're both big cameras, the kind where you put the cloth over your head and everything you see is upside down and reversed," Lamanno says.

He had been doing 35mm for a while, and wanted something more real. "I wanted to take the next step. I like pictures with lots of depth." He does contact prints in his basement darkroom from the large format negative.

Although largely self-taught, he did a two-semester independent study with a professor at Penn State while his wife was in school there.

"I wanted to document community stores up there, the old buildings, the old products." He took photos inside and out, catching the people who worked and shopped in the stores.

The winning photo was taken while visiting his father-in-law at Carolina Beach.

"I got up early one morning with my camera and it was one of those scenes with interesting clouds, a nice silhouette, the bird in the corner. ... It was a lucky shot.

Lamanno also has the computer program Photoshop and can scan in photos and manipulate them. He has recreated old postcards by shooting street scenes and taking out the cars and power lines. He scans in a hand-colored photo, cleans it up and then prints it on watercolor paper.

He reads Our State at work at the bookstore, but it was a coworker who pointed out the contest.

For his win, he got a complimentary copy of the magazine.

And praise. His wife was out somewhere and said her name and a man mentioned the photo in the magazine.

Lamanno likes to shoot landscapes, architecture and portraits. In Pennsylvania, he took portraits of many musicians.

You can see more of Lamanno's photos and buy them, including copies of the winning photo, at the Looking Glass Artist Collective.