A list of significant cameras I have owned (or still own)

- First Camera: Mamiya Secor 1000DTL purchased from the Navy Exchange the day after I got orders to my first ship, the Aircraft Carrier USS America, CVA 66

- Second Camera: Nikon F2 (I still own) bought from the Navy Exchange in Naples, Italy, a couple months before I was discharged from Active Duty in the US Navy

- Third Camera: Mamiya Secor RB67 large format

- Fourth Camera: Hasselblad 500C (I still own)

- Current Camera: Nikon D800 which I really love. Being able to see the shot at the time it is taken is so awesome compared to the Film World I started in where one had to wait several weeks to know the image that was on the film. I learned to bracket, bracket, bracket because many of these places would be very difficult to get a return ticket - right??

I've been an architecture/landscape person most of my photographic life. As the Navy took me and my camera around the world several times during 24 years of Navy life it was easy to produce images of buildings and the world around me. It was great fun on my ship taking pictures of flight ops and the ship and her population in general. When I was in port it was like being in a candy shop. I always tried to not take the same picture a thousand tourists around me were taking, to add something so a person would recognize it was my image. There are times it is difficult to resist bing a tourist: I remember being on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece the first time. I was just like any other tourist...

I now take more 'people' shots. I have 5 grandkids that are so much fun.

My wife and I went to Barcelona, Spain, last year. Gaudi's work is so gorgeous I became an Architecture photographer again. It was fun. Old cathedrals are my favorite (like 500 or 600 years old in Europe - Westminster Abby has a head stone inside dated 1109 if I remember correctly). HDR is a wonderful tool in such places. This year I am planning to take my wife to Athens to see if she experiences the same flood of feelings I did. To walk the same path Plato & Socrates walked - WOW!

My best to all of you.