Color blind. Thanks, Grandpa.

It's really more of a red-green deficiency, but when two-thirds of a man's RGB scale are wonky, it does things to the way he sees the world. Rainbows, for example, are yellow and little else. And colored dots with hidden numbers in them are just colored dots with no hidden anything.

Perhaps that's why I've always preferred black & white photography over color. To view it, to make it. I see colors, of course, but often when I'm looking for the way a subject would or could be composed in a photograph, it is the possibility of grays in light and shadow that strike me.

My EOS Rebel film camera served me well for several years, crappy Sigma lenses and all, and I was happy to have them. I abandoned photography then for another several years, and have recently picked up a used Canon 30D. I'm still relegated to those crappy Sigmas, plus a slightly less crappy Tamron 28-105, but for now I'll make it work. Am making it work.

I believe in the eye more than I do the glass. It's a fine place to start, I think.