So I've been a photographer since I was in the 6th grade. Using a Brownie camera I borrowed from my parents. 120 and 127 film rolls were quite common in the 50's and 60's.
Later in life I bought a cheap Polaroid black and white camera in high school to take photos of my pals and girlfriends. Very few of those photos still exist.
And remember those Instamatic cameras with the flash cubes? I had access to one of those as well.
It wasn't until I joined the USN that I got more serious about my photography.
I purchased a Petri 7s 35mm camera and started to take better photos. And given that camera was all manual with a built in light meter I started to learn what worked and what didn't.
I still didn't understand what an f-stop was and how it effected the depth of field. I just thought you used it to adjust to the amount of light available. Along with the shutter speed. The ASA back then was what we tag as the ISO today... the speed of the film. And that setting was a manual adjustment that allowed the light meter to show if you had the correct settings to get a decent exposure.
Between the f-stop (aperture) setting and the shutter speed I would find that happy exposure setting that would provide a shot that would be recognizable as "something" and not too dark or too light.
Did I mention that the focus was also a manual adjustment? Well it was.
What if I needed to have a flash. That would be a flash attachment on the "hot-shoe". Back then it could have been an actual flash bulb attachment or a new strobe light. I spent money and got the strobe flash. Later to learn that your shutter speed needed to be 1/60 of a second to synch with the flash properly. That Petri camera was a very good teaching camera for me... it worked well until I forgot that I left it on the roof of a car as we took off from the parking lot.... I retrieved it but it never worked well after that.
While still in the navy at a port of call in Singapore I purchased a Nikon F 35mm camera with two prime lenses. This was the start of my more professional and more experienced photography.
I took many photographs all over the western Pacific where my ship sailed and for decades later in my civilian life. My wife, my kids and my family are all photographed with that camera and many of those photos are some of my favorites.
For the record, I still have that camera and try to use it once in a while.
And in addition to that Nikon film camera I also use "point and shoot" film and a more automated Canon 35mm film camera. Photographs from those cameras are also favorites of mine.
In 2002 my wife gave me an Olympus digital point and shoot camera. It was a 3.2 megapixel camera. It had a good lens but limited features. I took many photos with it on a road trip to North Carolina in 2003. I also used my Canon SLR 35mm film camera at the same time as I want to be sure to get good photos and was still hesitant to put my eggs in the digital basket.
That single trip convinced me that digital photography was the way to go if I was to capture a large number of photos to pick the best of the best later on.
Later on I purchased a Nikon D80 DSLR and a telephoto lens to provide a better result for professional images.
Since then I've also acquired a number of other digital and analog cameras to complement my camera stables and quirky ideas for photography.
I built my own pinhole camera and became interested in a variety of ways to create photographs.
This has given me a drawing outside the lines concept of photography.
I can do photography to get wonderful landscapes and city-scapes if I want to but I also will now go for the goofy and quirky stuff as well.
And that is the very. very short story of my history in photography.
So what will I post? Anything and everything I want and I think will be interesting.
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