Through a career in photography, a local summer resident and photographer has seen the evolution of photography from black and white and darkrooms, to color, digital and image bracketing.

But Stephen Rubicam’s love of photography had modest beginnings. An 11-year-old Rubicam picked up his parents’ Kodak Tourister folding camera and snapped a few photos of donkeys and horses in a corral near his winter home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

He hasn’t set down his camera since.

He learned printing and darkroom skills in high school. When he went to college at the University of Arizona in Tucson, his two roommates were also photographers. The three young men built a darkroom as an addition to the house they rented together. For extra cash, he and his roommates would photograph local rodeos on the weekend, take the film home to develop, and sell the pictures to the rodeo participants the next day. He also photographed for his college’s underground newspaper, the Druid Free Press.

He took his first college photography class with his friend and roommate Balf Walker as an easy elective.

The professor was unhappy teaching the class, as he was working on a more sophisticated project, so he struck a deal with the two friends: if they taught the class, they would get As. So without hesitation, Rubicam and Walker accepted and taught the class.

“I was a government major,” Rubicam said. “I don’t know why I was so attached to (photography).”

In 1970, he started his photography business in Boothbay. “I had the choice of going to New York and trying to make it big, or to get going quickly in a town I already knew. And I loved the area,” he said. So he became a full-time resident, and lived year-round in Boothbay for about 40 years.

He met his wife Christine Rubicam in Boothbay Harbor. They married in 1980, and she began to help out with the business. To supplement income from the photography business, the couple rented out properties. The couple developed their own photographs as well as film from Bob’s Photo TV, and anyone in the area who was looking to get their film developed.

“It’s difficult,” Rubicam said. “You can make a living, but you’re not going to get rich unless you’re very exceptional. I guess that’s why we started our own processing lab – quicker turnover, daily income.”

Rubicam has three children, Charlotte, Raymond and Julia, who also helped out with the business when they were young. “When our son Ray was a little boy, he’d run across the bridge and drop the film off.”

Until 2006, he photographed mainly weddings, political campaigns and other social events in a candid style, capturing the subject of the photograph in their natural state and environment.

Now as he is hard of hearing, he prefers to do photos of products and real estate. He still takes jobs that showcase people, but not as much as he used to. “One of the keys to it is not to do what everyone else does,” Rubicam said. “I think that’s why I got into the more business side of it than the wedding side.”

He couldn’t decide on what his favorite photographic experience was over the years. “Photography gives you the opportunity to experience many things. There are so many beautiful things in life.”