I remember taking my first picture when I was about 8 or 9 and still living in Poland where I was born. My Mom took me to Krakow, her home town, and I took a picture of a castle tower. I still have that picture in a cute little album that I put together back then.

The next time photography surfaced in my life was when I was 15 and my Dad gave me a Minolta 35mm camera for my birthday. He drove a taxi for a living and found the camera in the back seat. He turned it in and 6 months later when no one came to claim it the cops returned it to him and he in turn gave it to me.

I finally listened to that nagging voice inside of me and started taking pictures on a regular basis in 2001 when I was about 29 after a few life changing events. I took classes at the Chicago Photography Center when it was still on Broadway and then on Lincoln after they moved. I participated in a few group shows while there which was a great experience. I learned how to develop b&w photographs. I really loved it but the time consuming nature of the process pushed me away.

One of the workshops at the CPC was a polaroid transfer class. I absolutely fell in love with the effect and began shooting exclusively with slide film to have material for my polaroid transfers. I still shoot a lot of slide film with my Nikon film SLR but I also have a little digital Canon PowerShot A710IS that I'm loving more and more. I'm thinking that my next investment will have to be a digital SLR.

My sister Trixie ( www.flickr.com/photos/obscurafix/ ) suggested at the beginning of the year (2007) that we start uploading a photo a day on Flickr so that we could see a little bit of each other's lives every day even though we live thousands of miles apart. It was a brilliant idea on her part.