Having found his calling not long after finishing elementary school, Dave Morgan is one of those photographers who would still be behind the lens if he won the lottery.

Morgan studied camera-workings at the Antonelli Institute of Art & Photography and started his professional career 25 years ago.

“My first wedding was in January of 1987,” Morgan said.

The wedding was a job he took while still in college. The bride and groom held their ceremony that day in Flourtown.

By 1990, Morgan opened Stylish Images Photography in Royersford.

But back in his eighth grade year while going to school in Reading is when Morgan first realized he would take up photography and never leave it behind.

“I was taking a printing class—a graphic arts class. To learn how to make a newspaper, we had to learn how to create a halftone, which is a photo that would be in a newspaper,” Morgan said. “We were given a camera to go out and photograph anything we wanted, bringing it back the next day to develop a roll of film.

“Being in the dark room, I was amazed that I could do this in the dark, play around with this film and create this piece of paper out of something I took a picture of. In eighth grade, I knew then and there that this was what I was going to do the rest of my life, which is kind of funny because I haven’t been in a dark room in 20 plus years, but it kind of led me to that.”

Morgan added that he mainly practices digital work now. The teachers at his school knew he was so passionate about photography that they brought Morgan’s parents in and talked with them about making a special exception to let him continue studying the subject.

Instead of taking the maximum-allowed two years of elective photography, one course in junior high and one in high school, Morgan was able to take photography classes from ninth through 12th grades because administrators cared so much about letting him pursue his unending curiosity with the artistic discipline.

Today, given his time in practice, Morgan estimated that he’s taken tens of thousands of wall-worthy photographs.

When his son was young, he made self-assignments for personal time with the camera, away from business photography—he’d ask his son to name a word of the day, and whatever he said, like “peaceful,” for example, Morgan would attempt to capture in a picture.

But in photographing people, Morgan most appreciates the feeling of bringing joy to each individual.

“I really like making people happy,” he said. “I love what I do. I think that’s a big thing, where a lot of people have jobs but do it because they need money, but if I hit the lottery for $200 million, I would still be a photographer.”

So attached is Morgan to his labor of affection that he has several filing cabinets and closets filled with all original negatives and photographs of scenes he’s snapped throughout the years of his life.

Morgan named Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, black and white fashion photographer Herb Ritts and beckoning American landscapes photographer Ansel Adams as some professionals he’s taken influence from and admired, throughout his years appreciating the capabilities of cameras.

But in a day and age when technology has such a hold on people, Morgan has noticed how people’s idea of a good photograph has shifted.

“It’s becoming a lost art, to cell phones,” he said about photography. “People take photos with their phones and are content. If you got rid of photographs in magazines, it’d just be words.”

He went on to explain the value of eye-scenes might be taken for granted today, with the original approach to photography overshadowed by cell phones cameras.

“People will always look over photographs, especially storyboards, when someone dies,” Morgan concluded. “It marks a place in time.”