Background

I've been doing amateur—both in the literal sense and in the artistic sense—photography for maybe 45 years. For 25 years of that I used a Canon AE-1, shooting mostly slide film.

Equipment

In 2005 I got my DSLR equipment:

o Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT with Haoda manual focus screen

o Canon EF-S 17-85 f/4-5.6 IS USM lens with Canon EW-73B hood

o Heliopan ES circular polarizing filter

I own a tripod and a flash unit, and rarely use either one.

Photographic style and interests

I'm an old-school photographer. I use manual exposure and manual focus unless I'm in a hurry.

For me, photography is not about creating photographs, it's about using a camera to capture an image. Photographs are just a byproduct of what I do for enjoyment. One of the things that I love about digital photography is that I don't have to waste money and resources printing my photos (unless I happen to end up with a special shot).

In mid-2006, after about a year of shooting Raw, I decided to move up to JPEG with the aim of completely doing away with post-processing. Having shot slides for a couple of decades, I'm accustomed to shooting for the final result in-camera.Yes, JPEG is more challenging to get correct in the field, but that's the fun of it. And I like working with the camera and not with the computer.

I've come to believe that there are two main philosophies about technical choices in digital photography: the numerical philosophy that holds that you're capturing data, and the visual philosophy that holds that you're capturing an image. I'm in the "visual" camp. I know all about the numbers—well, more than most numerically-oriented folks know about them—but I don't care about the numbers unless they make a difference that I can see in my pictures.

Mostly I do travel/vacation shooting. What little there is of my creative work leans either to commercial retail exteriors (not really urban landscapes, but I suppose it's similar) or to shots in existing light.

Location