ABOUT ME
 I have been taking pictures since I was a young boy in the 1970′s – the early days saw me sporting a Kodak Instamatic complete with 126 cartridge and square flash bulbs!When I was a kid I also had an old Polaroid that took black and white pictures. The camera was crazy (I think it was called a Square Shooter), you’d take the picture and pull out the picture. You’d then wait for it to “develop”, then you’d take off the top portion and voila!
Being a kid, my pictures with this camera were always over or under exposed – apparently I wasn’t good at timing. After these early relics, I remember having all sorts of “110″ cameras growing up and took albums full of pictures. I was fascinated with photography, but growing up poor, we didn’t have the means to afford anything of quality. One “camera” in particular that I do remember, was one I made in 6th grade out of a Quaker Oat Meal container. If you’re old enough, you know the one I’m talking about.
I didn’t own a real decent quality camera until I married my wife in 1991. She had purchased a Minolta X-700 35MM for school and of course I took “responsibility” for it once we were married. At the time we both worked for a large golf club manufacturer that was on the rise. I convinced them to buy me a telephoto lens (Quantaray 35-70MM) and appoint me the company photographer. I took many, many pictures with this rig — some of them were even good!
About this time the compact “point and shoot” 35MM cameras were becoming popular. We also started our family and these types of cameras became the norm around the house for the next 10 years or so. They were convenient, and easy to use! With three small kids, we didn’t have time for anything else anyway.
The advent of digital photography saw us dabbling in the new technology. I wonder if I can even count the number of digital images I have lost in hard drive crashes? The early cameras were horrid and not worth using so the majority of our pictures were still done on 35MM point and shoots.
About 4 years ago we got our first decent digital camera. The Fuji Finepix S5100. I have taken thousands of pictures with this camera (again, some were even good!) and continue to use it for certain jobs. During this same time period, a friend of mine began to “show me the light” and teach me about Digital SLR cameras and quality lenses. In 2007, based on his recommendation, I went down to my local Best Buy and purchased a Canon 30D, 100MM Macro lens, and the 28-135MM – That was an expensive trip! Since this time digital photography has become my passion. You will rarely find me without a camera and I have added extensively to my equipment as you will see from the list on the right.
So, why this blog? Besides the obvious reason of gaining exposure, I simply wanted to see if I could come up with 365 interesting pictures a year.
Jesse |
My Equipment
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This was the best camera I had ever owned because I made it myself.