A Passion Rekindled

My passion for photography began in my late teens. There were always photos in the house, and my mother always seemed to have a bit of the camera bug herself. In one form or another, I’ve always carried cameras around with me. Back then it was Kodak 110 cameras, because it was all we could afford. My first SLR was a used Pentax Spotmatic; a brand loyalist, I graduated to other Pentax cameras until 2001, when I decided to first travel the United States.

Considering the development time and money of 35mm film, I decided to move to my first digital camera, a Sony MVC-CD1000 - which wrote to mini-CD’s and served me well, even if it was only 1600x1200 resolution (2.1 Megapixels). Technology improved, megapixels increased and soon I was using a Sony F707 and then an F828… but I was beginning to long once again for the flexibility different lenses could provide, and so I moved to the brand which had the highest quality lenses at the time - Nikon.

I first dipped the proverbial toe into the Nikon waters in 2004 with the D70, which I stuck with until 2007 and upgraded to a D300. In the midst of traveling during 2012 however, the D300 began to have issues and in haste, I moved to the D800 - which I continue to use to this day with a small array of versatile lenses - 105mm Portrait/Macro, 70-200mm Zoom (which is my “everyday” lens) and the 80-400mm Zoom, which I mainly use for the long zoom. For anything wide, I prefer to shoot panoramas. It all gets carried around in a protective backpack (which seems to get heavier each time I pick it up). The roads in life can take many turns and changes, and I began to lose my passion over time to a point where I hardly even thought of going on a photo shoot.

As I mentioned earlier, technology improves and now smartphone cameras have dramatically increased in quality and capability. The convenience and “always carried” changed a paradigm for photography. In some ways they rival DSLR/Mirrorless cameras; in others, there’s a bit of romance lost as someone who likes the touch and feel of holding a camera with a lens. I’ve always been a techie however, and with the gift of time technology has opened up many additional avenues for photography.

iPhones, drones, GoPros, dashcams, software, AI… and I find myself rekindled in my passion for photography. It’s a journey I reembark upon and I ask you to continue to share this journey with me.