I have had an interest in photography since I was about 10 years old when I had a small camera to take B&W photos. I had a hobby developing kit that I would use to make prints. In my 20’s I eventually was able to afford a Pentax Spotmatic that I used for travel photos and later for various photographic needs at work. With the advent of the digital age I began using a digital camera now and again at work but with only a rudimentary understanding of all the functions. I bought my wife a cheapo Canon digital camera a few years back and later started using it for pictures while hiking, again with only point and shoot knowledge. When I retired in December of 2009 I decided that I would like to get into photography more so bought myself a Canon G11 and started learning about its functions (it’s amazing what you can learn by reading the manual). My wife and I joined a Photography Club and after about 4 months using the G11 I decided that I needed more so bought a Canon 5D Mark II and a few lenses and have been toting around 15 pounds (~7 kilograms) of camera equipment plus a tripod ever since.

I have no favorite subjects in particular that I like to photograph. Just anything that seems interesting to me. I shoot in RAW format and sometimes take 3 or more shots at different exposures that I blend together with Photomatix to create a HDR (high dynamic range) photo. Additional tweaking is done with Photo Elements.

I enjoy entering challenges on Flickr and am an Administrator for ‘The Challenge Factory’ (www.flickr.com/groups/challengefactory/) and for the Flickr Challenge Group (www.flickr.com/groups/flickr_challenge_group/).