My first digital photo was of my daughter on Jan 10, 2001 with a borrowed small point and shoot Canon. It was blurry with horrible white balance but it was fascinating.

I had never wanted to do much photography as the time between taking the pictures and getting them developed was often months and my results rarely worth the wait. But the immediacy of digital photography was an unexpected joy. I could see the image as it was taken. I could see what I had done wrong, and try again. I could take as many pictures as I had memory for without concern for wasting film. I could delete the obvious clunkers and take another shot. I was stunned to find that I actually liked photography. I wanted to get a digital camera of my own by the third shot.

At the time I had an old film SLR, and hated the weight of it. It had a single lens and was a good rig, but I rarely took it anywhere because it was so heavy. That and I knew next to nothing of how to effectively use it. The digital camera I borrowed was light, could fit in a large pocket, had the screen on the back to let me see what I was doing and didn't require that I understand ISO or f-stops to take a picture. With those requirements in mind I went out and bought my first point and shoot digital camera, and was hooked.

I found that I had a world of learning to do. I was terrible at my new-found hobby. Over time I got better and I ended up pushing my camera to do more, and found myself wanting more from it. I upgraded cameras several times and learned more about the technology and the art of photography, but always staying with the point and shoot cameras as the memory of the bulk and weight of my old SLR kept me from even looking at the digital SLR cameras. This worked until I found that I couldn't take some of the pictures I wanted due to the limits of my camera. I'm not blaming the equipment, I still have a ton to learn, but I was wanting to try some very technical things that require the ability to use lenses built for the task (e.g. astrophotography, underwater, macro, etc).

In 2006, for my birthday I got a Nikon D50 with the kit 18 - 55 lens. I was still worried about getting a digital SLR, but again the technology amazed me. The camera was lighter than I expected and with the lens attached probably weighed less than just the body of my old SLR. The screen I had come to love no longer worked as a viewfinder, but within a few minutes I was comfortable with the change. And the pictures... oh my. I just couldn't believe what the camera could do!

Now I'm at the point where I have a camera that will outperform me for several years while I work on the harder problem of becoming better at using it.

Hope you enjoy the photos. :)