The Beginning of My Interest in Photography
I started out buying a Kodak 110 camera with some money from my Aunt Mary back in 1984. Obviously not the best camera in the world but it was very portable. The main disadvantage of this camera and the corresponding film cartridges are the small size of the lens and the film. While you could purchase film with different ISO values, you couldn’t change the exposure or purchase add on lenses. However it did become a great tool for adventure
Discovery!
I found these whale bones in the desert of Baja California about 150 miles south of Ensenada Mexico. I used my trusty Kodak 110 camera to capture this amazing find. I was in Mexico for a whale watching trip, and we took a break and spent some time in the desert. Besides the bones we found an abundance of sand dollars.
Adventure!
On the same trip where I discovered the whale bones, I was out in San Ignacio Bay with the grey whales. I am in the skiff shown in the picture with the black hat. One of the whales actually flipped our skiff over and I was swimming next to large male grey whale. Another skiff had a mother and baby follow them back to our small ship and kept preventing them from disembarking by surfacing between their skiff and our small ship. They were just having too much fun with my shipmates.
Yellowstone and my Canon AE-1
In college I had the opportunity to go to Yellowstone in winter, and I purchased a Canon AE-1 at used camera shop for about $50 just for the trip so I could use 35 mm film. The Kodak 110, while nearly indestructible, didn’t have the picture quality I wanted and wasn’t great for enlargements. Unfortunately it was so cold while I was there the camera batteries died on a snowcat ride into the park and I didn’t have any backup. Lesson learned! However I did one great shot.
This picture was taken south of Jackson WY. At that point we had come back to civilization and I was able to restock on batteries for my AE-1. At least I got one good photo out of that trip along with some great experiences snowshoeing and cross country skiing
Upgrade!
I remember when I got my first digital SLR camera. It was a Canon 20D and it saved me thousands of dollars a year in development costs. It was so awesome to be able to review the shots right away, and not have to worry about running out of film. The Secure Digital card could hold hundreds of photos and could instantly be downloaded onto my computer. It was awesome. Also Canon has stayed very consistent with their digital cameras so as I’ve upgraded the learning curve hasn’t been very steep.
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