My favorites are classes better than my photostream!

That's because I'm on flickr to learn, not just to be social and have a good time.

Ambition

I have been an "ambitious" amateur photographer for most of my life - on and off. My ambition has always been to make pictures (rather than, for instance, documentation or story-telling). For me, the picture is the one important thing. Does that make me a formalist?

Cameras

A camera does not make a picture. But the pleasure of using a good tool can certainly be an inspiration. I have owned very few cameras in my long life (8, to be precise), but one thing has been consistent: Every new camera was more sophisticated and more costly than the one before!

Kodak Brownie Starlet was my first (at 14). It was not a sophisticated tool, but it made me discover the joy of making pictures.

My next, at 18 I think, was a Ferrania Lince Super T, but it might have been any of a great number of rangefinder cameras that were popular at that time. Introduced me to the technics and physics of photography, and I joined a photo club.

My first SLR, I was 22 at the time, was a Miranda Sensorex. I chose it over the same-priced Minolta SR-T 101, and that proved the wrong choice. Sensorex was an ingenious design, but, unfortunately, poor mechanical quality. It finally gave out on me after four years - mostly it taught me that mechanical reliability is important.

So I was ready for Olympus OM-1 when it surprised the World in 1972. I got one as soon as I could (barely) afford it. And an OM-2 when that came out. I still think those two cameras brought analog SLR to its peak.

Ages went by before I finally went digital - my next camera was Olympus OM-D E-M5, and the year was 2012. April 1. 2014, I supplemented it with an OM-D E-M1, and in September 2018 I went Mark II.