As I spend more time with my camera, I am drawn to landscapes, nature, travel, and astro/nightscape photography. But why? The more I think about this, the more it makes sense. I grew up in Indiana, and
as a kid, I spent summers at a YMCA camp in southeast Michigan – more about this in a minute. My grandfather had a darkroom in his basement, and I knew he took and printed pictures. I can still remember when he would set up the camera on a tripod and have the family sit on the couch. Then he would trip the timer, hurry to the couch – “everyone smile!” – and flash! Another horrible image. Maybe that is why I don’t care to photograph people.
I was a geek in school – wait a minute, I probably still am. I wouldn’t say I liked art-type classes, as I didn’t think I had an artistic bone in my body. By middle school, I had a camera and ran around taking pictures. Sometimes I’d go to my grandfather’s house to develop my film and print pictures. My parents must have gone crazy somewhere along the line because they let me get a small enlarger and allowed me to use the bathroom as a darkroom. I have found some of those early images. Can we say “pretty bad?”
I took my camera to summer camp – remember those high-tech Instamatics? – and brought film home to develop. One of the programs at the camp was astronomy; it was the perfect place for me. When I became a counselor, I was the program head, and we added rocketry to the program during the day. Back at school, I pursued aviation and eventually became an aero engineer working on the shuttle program. When I was on staff, the camp added a photography program, and I ended up in a cabin with the photo program head. I learned more about photography during that time and even bought a used SLR camera from him.
Work and a family seemed to put an end to any photography, the SLR went into a camera bag, and a point-and-shoot was perfect for the next portion of my life. We would load the kids in the car and use the point and shoot as our eye on the world. What better camera to get but a digital point and shoot when digital came about?
Near the end of my career, I went on a fishing trip to Costa Rica. My partner’s DSLR camera impressed me. While thinking about what I might do in retirement, photography came bubbling to the surface. I enjoyed it in my younger years, so why not now? So I purchased a DSLR and started to play around. Except now, I used it to pull all the facets of my life together. With my love of travel, it made sense to have a camera slung over my shoulder. I like to be outdoors when I travel with my appreciation of nature. And I am a sucker for the grand landscape! Wildlife also attracts me – I have to get that image of a bird, mammal, or reptile. Over the past couple of years, I have started bringing astronomy into my photography. I don’t see myself getting into deep space – I will leave that to the Hubble and Webb telescopes – but I love a grand landscape at night with the stars above. Finally, my inner geek gets to go into the digital darkroom to develop images and try new techniques. Maybe there is an artistic bone somewhere in there.