I don't know why I waited until the last year of school to join this club, probably because most of my junior and senior high school activities centered around music - singing in the choirs and playing the cello in the orchestras.
Back then there were no SLR's, no digital photography, we were each handed a basic 35mm camera and under the tutelage of our beloved Mr. Coyle, we were taught the basics of photography. Prior to that I had only taken pictures with a Brownie box camera that belonged to my Mother, and a Kodak Instamatic, that I had received from my brother for my 13th birthday - believing I had won the lottery of photography when I received that camera!
The photography club wasn't a fluff credit, we learned a lot of useful tools. We were the group responsible for taking pictures at school functions for the newspaper and for the yearbook. We got a lot of practise, and then we were introduced to the dark room. If I had known all that I would learn that year - I surely would have joined the club in grade 7!
I never forgot the skills I learned from Mr. Coyle... but after that year, I never got to shoot another picture from a 35 mm camera for quite a few years.
It wasn't until I was finished my nursing training and was working as a RN before I could afford to purchase my own 35mm camera. I bought a Pentax, and a bunch of lenses and I was hooked.
That camera was my main camera for many years, but life sort of got in the way of my photography - motherhood, working full time and every day living didn't leave me much time to continue my hobby so the camera sat longer periods in the camera bag than it ever did in my hands.
Just as I was beginning to have the time and interest in re-visiting photography our home was broken into and all my camera equipment was stolen. SLR's had shoved 35mm's aside, and I wasn't entirely sure I had what it took to start the learning process anew, so I bought a small digital camera and pretended that I was more than happy in pointing and shooting and getting a fairly decent picture.
Three years ago, I experienced a lay-off from a position I had held for over 17 yrs. I received a years severance and for some reason the first thing that came to mind was that I wanted to take some money and buy a real camera. I had talked about replacing my 35mm for years, but the timing and financing was never quite there - now it was.
So I bought my Nikon - and my love affair with photography was once more restored. My camera isn't high-end - but I don't care - it does everything I want it to - and more - I still have a lot of features I have never tried. I work with only two lens ( so far) and somehow for me - it's enough.
Since moving to the country, my camera has become even more of a companion. Rarely a day goes by when its not in my hand aimed at something in my yard.
These past couple of weeks it has been a yo-yo - between Jonathan's hands and mine, and it has been so much fun to share my hobby (and my camera) with my adult son.
I look forward to the day when he has his own camera and we can spend a day out shooting pictures together... what fun that will be!
So for the next few posts, I will be sharing some of our photos. Some he took and I edited. Some I took and edited... all were taken on my camera - a few are so similar, we really can't say for sure who took them - but they all are pretty darn good pictures, if I do say so myself.
So, I hope you come back to see our work.
Oh yeah - That's me on the far left side of the picture holding the camera and looking so serious.
Talk about a flash back moment!
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