introduction
My first camera was a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye followed by a Kodak Pony, a 35mm camera. I still have some of the Kodachromes taken with that camera. My first interest in photography started in high school when I became the school photographer. The school had a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic camera and a bulky strobe light that required shouldering a power pack that was quite heavy. But this unit provided enough light to take really fantastic photos of nighttime football and indoor basketball. There was also a twin lens reflex, either a Rolleiflex™ or Rolleicord™, I don't remember.
Then on graduation from college, my sisters gave me a Baby Gray Rolleiflex™ 4 x 4. It used 127 roll film and I shot a couple of thousand positives using Ektachrome. This camera recorded my first 8 years of travel while in the US Navy. I also picked up a used Rollei 6 x 6 from the Stars and Stripes in Tokyo for about $25. It remains to this day a good camera. The Baby Gray Rollei started giving me trouble in 1968. At that time I bought a Nikkormat™ SLR. Positive film was gradually replaced with negative film for easier viewing. But with prices being what they were, less and less photographs were being taken.
In the year 2000, two things happened. The first was that the digital camera image quality became good enough that it seemed like the right time to buy in on this latest technology. The second thing to happen was that I retired. So with a new play toy and plenty of time on my hands, interest in photography was renewed. I started with a Nikon Coolpix 880™. I really believe that the quality of photos taken with this camera is superior to many later point-n-shoot cameras of higher resolution. But this did not stop me most recently from purchasing a second Coolpix, the 8700. But any photographer is never satisfied with the cameras in his inventory. At the end of 2009, I bought a Nikon D5000.
With retirement comes traveling and the need to share our travel photo with others. There are links on the left that will direct you to our photographs taken on our trips. The internet was the most convenient tool if I only knew how to write the code! Well, I have learned, first by reading and studying books then moving on to more formal study with learning sites found on the internet.
Digital photography brings the need for a digital darkroom. The photo editing programs that make the digital darkroom work, I found, can require many hours of study and practice in order to master most of powers of the editor. I first started by using Adobe Photoshop Elements© which is a very good program for about one-seventh the cost of the full Photoshop which is probably the industry leader. I found help utilizing on-line courses. all of which have closed. The homework for these lessons are accessed through this page — choose from the links to the left.
