My Passion For Photography

It seems like I have always had an interest in taking photographs and been drawn to photos from the past.  I got my first camera about the age of 12.  I'm not sure where it came from...I'm certain someone gave it to us as it was given as a Premium from a store and could not be purchased.  It was a strange little camera...teal blue with a funny hot shoe attachment at the top but it took great photos!  My mom, thought that it had been a dental camera...after doing some research on the web, I don't think so.  It was a Kodak Hawkeye Instamatic camera with no flash that took a 126 cartridge.  I don't think we had a photo processing store in town so we dropped the film in the mail and I patiently waited for the photos to come - hoping that the wonderful photos I thought I had taken would actually turn out!  Of course there was no focus or zoom, so photos from that time are a little strange!  You would have a great photo of someone standing by their house but they were so far away you could barely see their face!  It drives me crazy when I am scanning those photos...wishing they were in better focus or closer to the subject!  Many of our photos were processed with one large, square photo with 2 smaller square photos attached that you could remove and share with friends.  Again, scanning those tiny photos at times has become the bane of my existence.  It seems like those are the only ones that we kept!  This camera went with me on our vacations to the Black Hills, Montana and to all our family celebrations!

My next camera was a Kodak Tele-Instamatic 608.  I don't think I had it very long.  The shutter button to take the photo was very hard to press and ended up making the photos blurry.  I also seem to remember the little sliding mechanism that covers the lens getting stuck all the time.  It used 110 cartridge film and had a flash that inserted into the top.  Not one of my favorites!

My next camera was a Kodak Ektralite 10 camera with a built-in flash!  Wow...we were really moving up in the world!  It took pretty good photos but was really cheap and didn't last very long.  It also took 110 film and was easy to carry around but not made to last.

My first "real" camera I purchased about 1982 or so.  My brother, Layne had bought a camera, a Canon AE-1 Program and I was determined to have one too.  Besides my car at the time, it was my first big purchase I made on my own!  It took amazing photos, although...My brother and I took photos of the same occaisions and I think mine turned out better!  Maybe it was the photographer!  Just kidding, Layne!  This camera really got me into photography for real!  I got a couple of lenses and filters and took some great photos.  When my kids came along, I took thousands of photos of them!  It is so much fun looking back at  those photos and reminiscing!  This camera was a 35mm camera and the zoom lens really gave me a great view of my subjects.  I used this camera right up until the digital cameras started coming out.  The downside of a film camera is thinking you've taken all these great photos and you find out the film didn't get put in right and they are all gone!  Or the focus was off or the flash didn't go off!  What a disappointment!  I will always have a special place in my heart for this camera but I was so excited for the digital age!  Now she sits in a worn camera bag covered in dust...maybe someday I'll take her out again!

My first digital camera was one with a 3.5 floppy disk that you could just pull out of the camera and insert into your computer and there was your photo.  The zoom wasn't great and the megapixels were really small but it worked ok.  After that I purchased a Canon S2IS - a great digital camera with a good zoom and decent megapixels.  This is the camera that took action shots of my son running at the Drake Relays and the Iowa State High School Track meet!  I also took family photos mostly of my mom...I am so thankful to have those now that she is gone!  This camera combined what I loved about my SLR with the best of the digital world and still ranks as one of my favorites.  When it stopped working a year ago or so, we were in the middle of my son's battle with Leukemia.  Even though times were tough, I still got a new camera because photography is such a big part of my life and I wanted to document what we were going through.  My current camera is a Canon SX30IS.  It has a 35x zoom which is totally amazing and rivals that telephoto lens I had on my SLR.  I would love to have a digital SLR someday but this is as close as I can get!  I am still learning to use all the settings and miss my manual focus on my SLR but am consistantly amazed at the photos it turns out!  

Most of the photos I will use in my blog will be my photos taken with the myriad of cameras I have used over the years.  Most of the old ones, I couldn't tell you which one it was taken with.  Actually, the story behind the photos is much more important than the camera it was taken with.  So that, in a nutshell is my progression thru the world of Cameras!  I hope this is just the beginning of the journey!