I have been a lifelong fan of the photograph with some of my earliest memories involving picture books and my father's slide shows. Besides my father, my maternal grandfather and great, grandfather were also excellent photographers. My grandfather worked for Leica in NJ and my great grandfather took amazing stereo slides. (Unfortunately, that camera, a Leica, was stolen many years ago.)

I had an Kodak Instamatic as a child with which I produced a seemingly random collection of square-format black and white images. The one I like and still think about often is one I took while climbing a tree. It is of a friend perched on a branch above me with the sun streaming through the leaves behind him. Much later in the mid-1980s my dad got me a Minolta X-700 for my birthday and it was love at the very first click. Over the next decade I took many thousands of photos, spent thousands on lenses, accessories and even bought an extra body to be able to switch film types. Then, suddenly, I just stopped - cold turkey - right about when digital cameras began to appear. I don't know why but I don't think I took a photo for about 10 years.

Then, slowly, first with my wife's Nikon Coolpix E4200, I started taking basic shots documenting our life, our travels, our friends, our cats . . . Digital photography was a whole new experience and I didn't like it much at first. At some point I became fed up with the limitations of her point-and-shoot and tried to find something to approximate the experience of my old Minolta, (which I still have.) The camera I found was the Fuji S6000fd - a so-called "bridge" camera. I really began to enjoy taking photos again. I stuck with that camera for a long time until it took a fall and lost the ability to focus at infinity. Since I had enjoyed the Fuji experience thus far - especially their emulation of Velvia film - I replaced it a few years back with a HS30EXR. However, despite the big jump in megapixels and an impressive superzoom lens, I was not very happy with the resulting images. Perhaps there are too many compromises in the lens or maybe it's the CMOS sensor versus the CCD in my first Fuji - either way I knew it wasn't a camera to grow with.

So I decided to go in a different direction, deliberately limiting myself to a 35mm lens in return for - I hoped - increased clarity, color realism and a more film-like look. The X100S is my attempt to return to my Instamatic roots; simplify the process to get back in touch with the boy that took that photo up in the tree all those years ago. Now, instead of zooming in and out I walk up and I walk back. The optical viewfinder is a godsend for pre-visualization and the peak focus feature is almost as good as the old-style split-screen/fuzzy-doughnut thingy. The focus ring on this camera actually works unlike my previous digital cameras and so I manually focus 100% of the time now. I have fallen in love with this camera the same way I did with my old Minolta.

What I like and what I strive for in my own photography is difficult to describe. It's a visual process that only seems to intersect with language if there are actual words in the image. Often it seems the more consciously I attempt to compose an image the less I end up liking it. One important element that adds a lot to my enjoyment of a photograph is a strong sense of place. I find images with layers of meaning involving a deep sense of history appealing though it can take a lot of exposure over time for me to fully appreciate their scope. Simple images without context are also appealing but their effect on me is short-lived.

My short time here at Flickr has been a revelation for me. There is so much out there to see. Much of it is inspiring and occasionally even moving. I am most impressed by those of you who do portraiture because I wish had had the interpersonal skills to interact with people while holding a camera. A special thank you to those of you who label or tag your photos with a location. What a great way to go exploring - through the eyes of another. I hope you enjoy my photos as much as I enjoy taking them. Please don't steal them and credit them as your own. If you'd like to use one please contact me - I'd be more than happy to grant permission as long as I get credited. Thank you.