1970s – Early Photography Beginnings
The journey begins in about 1974, when I was about 11 or 12. Our elementary school class went on a field trip to the Fernbank Planetarium in Atlanta, Georgia. While we were there we had an opportunity to see all the exhibits including an Apollo capsule, which was very thrilling for me because I was a big fan of the space program (and still am). But it was when I visited the gift shop that everything changed. There I saw a camera for sale – a Diana F—what most people would dismiss as a cheap plastic toy, both then and now. But remembering how much my mother had taken family photos with her camera but never let anyone else touch it, I looked at it as a chance to be independent and take photos of my own. I had some spending money for the trip, so I bought it. It came with a roll of black and white film (in a size I later learned was called 120, the same as medium format cameras), and it had rudimentary instructions on how to use it. I loaded the film on the bus during the ride back to school, and tried taking some photos along the way and later after I got home. My mom seemed a little annoyed that I had seemingly wasted my money, and expected I wouldn’t use it for long because of the cost of film and processing. But my dad thought differently. He not only had my first roll processed, but he also bought more film for me to use. He was interested in photography like I was, and this was his way I think of encouraging me to “do something other than stick your nose in a book.” His interest was in shooting home movies of the family with his Keystone Super 8 movie camera.
I did keep using that camera for about a year, until the lens eventually fell off (the Diana was made of mostly plastic parts glued together), and it went into the scrap heap. But by then my interest in photography had taken solid hold and has been with me ever since.
Within a year or so, I acquired the first of what became several 110 cameras, many of them made by Vivitar. 110 was a very dramatic change from the Diana – the film was only a fraction of the size of the 120 rolls, and it was packaged in plastic cartridges that made loading and unloading super simple – just open the back cover and drop it in. I also first experienced using color film with the 110, where all my 120 rolls had been black and white. The Vivitar and other makes of 110 cameras were more durable than the Diana, but still prone to malfunctions from time to time causing me to replace them every few months. I continued to use these through the end of the decade and into my first year or so in college in 1980-81.
Around 1978, my father began letting me use his Keystone Super 8 movie camera regularly. This was the camera he’d used to document our family life on film, and now it became another tool for me to explore visual storytelling. I remember using it at a family gathering that year, capturing my uncles gathered together in conversation—a moment that became unexpectedly precious when one of them passed away shortly before I attended GHP the following summer. The Super 8 camera taught me that photography and film weren’t just about capturing images; they were about preserving memories of people and moments that wouldn’t last forever.
In the summer of 1979 between my junior and senior years in high school, I attended the Governor’s Honors Program (GHP) sponsored by the State of Georgia. Only about 600 high school students per year were selected from across the state to spend six weeks on a college campus participating in focused “enrichment” courses in subject areas they were nominated in by their teachers (in my case, I was nominated in Social Studies as I had a keen interest in history). When I saw Photography listed among the two-week electives, I signed up immediately. On the first day, the instructor introduced us to the tools we would be using, central of which was 35mm single lens reflex (SLR) cameras. On top of that, we would be shooting with color slide film, and there was no limit to how many rolls of film we could shoot. The camera assigned to me was his personal Olympus OM-2, and he took great care in showing me how to operate it and get the most out of it.
I was over the moon with this opportunity! I took the camera everywhere with me – to class, meals in the cafeteria, concerts, recreational time, and just wandering around the campus. As the boxes of mounted slides started coming back, he would evaluate them and give me pointers on how I could improve my shots… and off I’d go again. I came up with a plan for the slides… We each had to present a final project in my Social Studies group at the end of the program, and I chose to use the slides to tell the “story of GHP”. I selected slides, wrote the script, and then presented it to the class. It was a huge success, with my instructors remarking that no one had ever attempted such a presentation that looked at the program itself before. I took the slides home with me at the end of the program and later made a presentation at my school to prospective GHP candidates.
But even more importantly than that, I knew what direction I wanted my hobby to go.
1980s – First SLR and System Building
I graduated from high school in 1980 and started in college that fall. As a freshman from a working-class family (made even more “working” from my parents divorcing just before my graduation), extra money over and above the grants and loans I had for school was hard to come by. I worked part time on the weekends to cover my expenses, which left little for luxuries like hobbies… but I managed to squeeze in shooting a 110 cartridge every now and then.
As I was looking forward to my sophomore year in the fall of 1981, the rules for financial aid were changing and I was unable to obtain enough funding to pay for tuition. In talking with one of the school counselors, I learned about their Cooperative Education (co-op) program, which paired students up with companies who would hire them to work full-time in their field of study. The pay would cover my school expenses, but it came at the cost of taking longer to finish the degree (work and school would be during alternating quarters, reducing classes to two quarters each year instead of three). It was better than the alternative of dropping out, so I signed up. The first assignment was very generous in pay, and with having weekends off with no school assignments it gave me the incentive to jump back into my photography.
I had been out shopping one evening after work that fall, and came across a display of 35mm SLR cameras for sale. The salesman was another college student who was studying art and photography, and we struck up a conversation about his studies and the equipment he used. I mentioned how much I enjoyed using the OM-2 a couple of years earlier, and he suggested that I continue to pursue working in 35mm. Among the various camera models on display were several Minoltas, and he pointed out one he thought would be a good camera for learning. It was a relatively new model called the XG-A. I looked it over as he demonstrated its features, and I went home with some literature to think about it. A few days later I returned and placed an order for one. Then as now, cameras were sold in kits that included a basic lens in a fixed focal length, as zoom lenses were much more expensive and out of reach for most consumers. The XG-A was paired with a 50mm lens, which was often called a “normal” lens back then (“normal” meaning the field of view was similar to what a person normally sees).
The XG-A represented several firsts for me: first owned 35mm camera, first interchangeable lens camera, first “serious” camera for taking more than snapshots, and first major expense in camera gear. And initially I was scared to death that I might do something wrong and either damage or destroy it.
But I need not have feared at all. I took it everywhere, looking for opportunities to take photos any place that seemed worthy of recording on film. The XG-A was tougher than it looked and got bounced around frequently (before I learned about padded gadget bags, which was later), but it never failed to work when I pressed the shutter button. It was primarily an aperture-priority camera, which I found was an ideal format to learn with as it allowed me to understand the relationship between aperture and shutter speed and how they combined with the film speed to affect the outcome in my photos.
As I built up my experience using the XG-A, I was finding how much having only a single 50mm lens was limiting my photos to the same basic views all the time. I started looking into what I could do to add more variety, and found I would need to increase my investment by adding more lenses. The conventional wisdom was to obtain separate lenses for differing needs, such as a wide angle lens, a telephoto lens, and so on. Zoom lenses were starting to come down in price, making them more within reach (remember I was still in college at the time), but major brand lenses (like Minolta) were extremely expensive. Third party lenses were much less costly, and one brand that consistently stood out was Vivitar. I had determined I wanted a longer telephoto lens, and found Vivitar made an 80-200mm that would fit my budget. I purchased it, and suddenly I could pull distant subjects into far more pleasing compositions than the 50mm could manage. Later I began looking at the other end of the focus range, toward wider angles for landscapes and group photos, and that led me to my second zoom lens purchase, an Osawa 35-70mm. At this point I retired the 50mm lens, as the two zooms allowed me to do more than ever before. I suppose at this stage I could say I had built my first camera “system” but I never really thought about it that way… it was just me and my camera.
I found a very worthy testing ground in Stone Mountain Park, a large state park east of Atlanta. Whenever I acquired a new piece of equipment or wanted to try a different film stock, I’d make a day of driving out and spending time wandering through the park. I became familiar with the granite dome, the surrounding trails, and the variety of subjects from landscapes to architectural details, which gave me a way to benchmark and compare how each new piece of equipment worked and what each new film stock could do. I especially enjoyed trying out new film types, developing a fondness for Fujifilm’s G series and the unique ECN-2 process films from Seattle Film Works, comparing how each rendered color, grain, and contrast. These Stone Mountain visits taught me as much about photography as any book or class could have; it was my personal laboratory where theory met practice, roll after roll.
My interest in cameras didn’t just stop with 35mm. There were other technologies coming out in the 1980s, and I was keen to give them a try when the opportunity came up.
One of these was a new film format called the Disc. 110 cameras were smaller than most film formats, but interest in them was fading. Kodak figured creating an even smaller camera would be very appealing, and so the disc camera was born. I purchased one of their less expensive models called the “Disc 3000” and used it several times. In practice it was handy for situations where carrying my XG-A wasn’t practical, but the images were not much better than the 110 snapshots I had taken years before. It never really caught on with me, and my interest in it faded about the same time as it did for the general public.
Another interest was instant photography. Polaroid had of course been the only company offering instant photography for decades, and when they introduced their SX-70 in the late 1970s with self-contained film to rave reviews Kodak looked at it as an opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. They introduced their own form of instant film and cameras called Colorburst, which developed a popular following but not quite as large as Polaroid. Around 1984, while visiting my college roommate’s home, his family took me to a flea market where I found a Kodak instant camera for sale; it was a model called “The Handle” because its shape incorporated a large handle on one side. I bought it and used it regularly, finding the images were mostly on par with Polaroid’s quality. A few years later, Kodak was forced to stop making the film due to being sued for patent infringement, making the camera no longer usable.
After about four years of using the XG-A, I felt I was reaching the creative limits of the camera and began looking for an upgrade. Given I now had an investment in lenses, I looked very carefully at Minolta’s other offerings. Their flagship camera was the X-700, which offered a Programmed Exposure mode; this was in direct competition with Canon, which had introduced their version called the AE-1 Program. Program mode seemed too good to be true to me, where nothing needed to be done other than pointing and focusing, so I wasn’t very interested in it. Minolta then introduced another model called the X-570, which had all the features of the X-700 except Program mode and at a more attractive price. While I hated to part with the XG-A, I decided to sell it and put the funds toward a new X-570 body, which I bought and immediately put to work.
The X-570 gave me a more robust camera with better features and controls, allowing me to explore more creative work. I shot events for family and friends, including weddings, and more extensive travel photos; at one point it had given me the thought of going into professional photography work, but I decided to stick with just being a by now very advanced amateur. This is the camera that carried me through the remainder of the decade and into the early 90s, when the next evolution in my photographic journey would take place.
1990s – System Switch and Teaching Tools
The decade of the 1990s marked several major changes in my life – marriage, children, buying a home, building a career and a family. My photography hobby changed too in several ways.
As newer generations of 35mm cameras came on the market, older models fell into obsolescence. The trusty Minolta X series camera bodies and lenses I had used for nearly all the 1980s were no longer being made, and it was inevitable that one day they wouldn’t be repairable either. The newer models held a lot of promise, with much of it relying on two emerging technologies – programmed exposure and autofocus. Programmed exposure wasn’t new; it had been introduced in the early 1980s with cameras like the Canon AE-1 Program and Minolta X-700 leading the charge. But I avoided it because I was both not very confident in the technology and very comfortable with using aperture priority modes, opting instead to stick with the non-programmable Minolta X-570. Autofocus was an entirely different matter. How many shots had I missed, or gotten poor results, because I had been slightly off focus? Yes, I was pretty good with using the split-image microprism focusing screens Minolta was famous for, but autofocus promised improved speed and accuracy, which I accepted would be very useful for action shots or whenever I wanted tack-sharp focus.
And so, in the spring of 1991, I started researching what was available. Minolta had their line of program and autofocus cameras called Maxxum, which would have been the logical upgrade from my X series experience. But when I looked at them up close they seemed underwhelming. They were boxy, clumsy-looking, difficult to hold steady, and, well, felt like they were made of cheap plastic… very different from the sturdy metal bodied models I’d always used. Plus, the lenses weren’t interchangeable with my MD series… meaning it required starting completely over with an entirely new system. I no longer felt the loyalty to Minolta that I once had and decided to take a wider view of the market to see if there was something that offered a better solution.
At my local camera shop I asked to look at the other two leading camera makers on the market, Canon and Nikon. Nikon seemed promising and they supported their older lenses, but they were very expensive and I still had the prospect of needing to buy new lenses. That left Canon. Their EOS line was introduced four years earlier in 1987, and it was both more affordable and seemed the more polished of the two. Their camera bodies were still plastic, but they were more ergonomically designed than Minolta or Nikon. When I picked one up it felt more natural in my hand. The controls seemed more logically arranged, and their innovative control dials allowed me to easily adjust settings without taking my eye from the viewfinder, which was important since there were no more tactile controls like the aperture rings on my Minolta lenses. And the autofocus? Very smooth, accurate, and fast, especially with their “Ultrasonic” lenses which used tiny motors that responded faster than an eyeblink and adjusted dynamically as you followed a moving subject. Zoom lens technology had also greatly improved, and it was obvious Canon had put a lot of effort into making them more accessible to mainstream users.
And so, I made the biggest change in my photography hobby since starting in 1974. I sold my beloved Minolta camera system and switched to Canon. But which model? They had several available, but the one that caught my eye was called the EOS Elan. It was considered an “enthusiast” or “prosumer” model, meaning it contained advanced features that more experienced photographers like myself would appreciate and use, but it wasn’t a full-fledged professional-grade camera. One of the unique features of the Elan was its film advance system; where most cameras used sprockets and a geared motor to advance the film after each frame was taken, the Elan used a friction-fed take up spool and an “electric eye” sensor to track the sprocket holes as the film was advanced using a whisper-quiet belt drive. Canon advertised it as the quietest 35mm camera on the market. It was paired with a 28-80mm Ultrasonic “kit” lens that was very high quality. It wasn’t cheap by 1991 standards, but it was affordable for me.
I soon put the new system to work, and it met all the promises Canon had made and more. Remarkably, that camera was my mainstay for the next 15 years and countless rolls of film. It was with me when I proposed to my wife in 1993, recorded the birth of our first son in 1994, chronicled birthdays, holidays, trips, and everyday life. It was finally retired from regular use when I made the jump to digital photography.
As my children grew they began to enjoy seeing the photos I took of them, but it was difficult to keep their interest as the film processing cycle was longer than their attention span (load the film, take the photo, rewind the film, take it in for processing, and finally see if the photo was good). In the later part of the decade I decided to try a different approach… instant photography. And with the demise of Kodak’s instant photography products, there was only one player left – Polaroid.
Polaroid had flooded the market in the 1980s with instant cameras that used a self-contained film, a far cry from the peel-apart “pack film” that established them in the industry. There were three major formats of self-contained film called SX-70 (first released with their then-revolutionary SX-70 folding camera), 600 (for mass consumer sales), and Spectra (an enhanced version of 600 which was larger and more upscale). I had owned and played with a 600-type camera back in the late 1980s called the Polaroid Impulse; its selling point was the inclusion of an autofocusing system based on a “sonar” rangefinder built into the front of the camera, giving it a distinctive look. It was rugged, simple to hold and use even in small hands, and the self-contained film made it virtually foolproof – the perfect choice for a youngster.
I went shopping online (in itself a novelty in the later 1990s) and found where there were literally hundreds of Polaroid cameras for sale on various sales websites. I acquired several Impulse cameras to outfit myself and my two oldest children (the youngest of three was born in 1996 and wasn’t quite ready yet), and we would take turns going on adventures on the weekends. I would show them what to look for and how to take a photo, and then we would take photos together and compare them. The instant format was perfect for this, as they could immediately see the results. As we went out more, they got better and were very proud of their work; the younger of the two insisted on keeping all his photos in his own album, which I gladly bought for him.
With the end of the 1990s, more changes were coming to my life outside of photography… but there were many new things to come in that world as well. New technology, new interests, and new roads to explore.
2000s – The Digital Transition Years
The first decade of the new millennium marked a fundamental shift in my photography hobby for several reasons. Priorities change over time, and mine were no exception. My family moved to a new state (from Georgia to Texas) so I could take a new job, my children became more involved in their own pursuits, and during this busy season of my life photography became more of a documentary medium for family milestones than one fueled by creativity.
But despite these relatively quiet years, my interest in learning about the advances in photographic technology didn’t stop. And with the huge shift in the industry from film to digital photography, there was plenty to learn.
I started out cautiously, as I always have. By this stage I was fully engaged in the concept of digital imagery; in the 1990s the industry had introduced the concept of the “Photo CD” where film was developed using traditional methods and then scanned electronically, with the images then burned to a compact disc. The disc could then be viewed on any computer or even printed locally without having to send negatives to a photo lab. But actual digital imaging without the use of film was still evolving.
My first hands-on experience with digital photography technology was with a camera made by Polaroid called the PDC-640. Polaroid had been testing the waters for some time, looking at digital imaging as a logical complement to their instant photography and to jump on the widespread adoption of home computers. The PDC-640 was a digital point-and-shoot camera with a fixed lens, built in flash, a tiny display screen, and a 0.3 megapixel sensor. It took photos at a resolution of 640×480, which in the day was comparable to a VGA computer display. I got it mainly to see how its image quality compared with the Photo CDs I was getting when my film was developed. I learned quickly that the film scans were vastly superior, and I soon set it aside as an interesting but not very useful technology for my use. There were much more sophisticated digital cameras on the market and the technology was improving all the time, but at the beginning of the decade they just weren’t within my reach.
My continued interests took me in one final direction in film during this period. A few years earlier in 1996 a new format was introduced called the Advanced Photo System or APS. APS was created by a partnership between the major film and camera manufacturers to bring a smaller and more capable film “system” to market that could appeal to professional and amateur photographers alike. Among its technical innovations were tighter film grain for increased sharpness; a smaller physical size allowing cameras to be made smaller and lighter; a sealed film cartridge that made using it virtually foolproof; and magnetic striping that recorded exposure information for each frame directly on the film itself to help when making prints. But its most widely known feature was the ability to produce images in three different formats called C or “Classic” (the same dimensionally as 35mm film), H or “HDTV” (similar to wide screen or HD televisions coming into use), and P or “Panorama” (a very wide 3:1 format previously requiring specialized cameras and film). It seemed like a brilliant move forward, but between the costs for completely new camera gear and specialized film processing equipment, and the onset of digital photography which also recorded exposure information for each frame, APS was mostly relegated to niche uses.
My opportunity to try APS didn’t happen until 2005. While I was on a business trip to San Francisco, I had a couple of “down” days and decided to play tourist… but I didn’t have a camera. While I was wandering along Fisherman’s Wharf I came across a storefront selling cameras, so I walked in. The salesman tried to show me several high-end models, but all I was interested in was a simple point-and-shoot for tourist snapshots. I noticed some Minolta cameras on display, and feeling nostalgic I asked to see one. He handed me a Vectis 30, which was the first APS camera I’d ever held. We struck a deal including a couple of rolls of film, and away I went. The rest of the day was spent playing with the camera and trying out the various modes while capturing scenes along the waterfront. Two memorable images were that of a pair of ducks sitting on a wharf railing with Alcatraz Island in the background, and a panorama shot of a World War II Liberty Ship berthed nearby as a floating museum. I brought the camera home from the trip, but it turned out to be the only use I made of it. When I got the images back from the rolls, I saw the limitations of the format compared to my existing 35mm film, and decided it really was a good idea that came a little too late.
The following year, 2006, brought the most significant change in my photography since the switch from Minolta to Canon SLRs. Digital SLRs (or DSLRs) had advanced significantly in development since the beginning of the decade, and Canon had introduced a line of digitals that were suited to my quieter interests at the time – the EOS Digital Rebel series. The second release in what was ultimately a very successful series was called the Digital Rebel XT, and it had quite a number of innovations including a then-impressive 8 megapixel sensor (24 times more powerful than the PDC-640 just a few years earlier), multiple exposure modes and wider exposure latitude compared to film, improved focusing modes, and very important for me, full compatibility with my existing EOS Elan’s lenses. Ironically, the sensor format was the same size as APS film – called APS-C in digital terms (the only physical feature from APS technology that actually survived). It was very affordable compared to their other DSLRs… and even better, it was featured in a gift catalog where I could use hotel points accumulated from my business travels to purchase one. When it arrived and I held it for the first time, I felt a bit of a spark for this hobby that I hadn’t felt in a long time… it was a new technology to learn and master, but with an old feel from a brand I’d been familiar with for 15 years. I put the camera to work almost immediately and was impressed with the quality of the images I could record. I was still a bit reluctant to completely abandon film altogether, but after a few months of using the XT I felt comfortable enough to leave the Elan in my camera bag for good.
While my interest improved, it still wasn’t up to the level it once was a decade earlier. But seeing the promise of the technology and the direction forward, it helped lay the groundwork for the future.
As the decade was winding down, I found my son who’d had an interest in instant photography years before was starting to show a new interest as he was getting older. By 2009 he was in high school, and his interests were mostly in his studies and playing in band. The band was planning a trip and he mentioned wanting to be able to take photos of the trip. That set me into thinking about what kind of camera he could take. 35mm film by this point was on a sharp decline, and he was limited in what he could take with him so a SLR or DSLR wasn’t really an option. I decided to look into digital point-and-shoot cameras, and one of our local stores had several Canon models. One in particular, a PowerShot A490, was the ideal size for his needs, with simple controls that didn’t require studying a manual for hours to figure out. It had a 10 megapixel sensor, actually more than my larger XT, which seemed counterintuitive. It also had one other feature that was a surprise – the ability to shoot 640×480 video… a capability I hadn’t thought about since the Super 8 days. I bought it and after giving it a test run myself I let him take it on the trip, and it generally stayed with him afterwards for some time.
By 2010, my transition from film to digital was complete. Film became a memory, but the techniques I’d learned during the preceding decades never really went away. Film had taught me to think before I took the shot… considering lighting, composition/framing, anticipating action, and so many other factors. The camera simply recorded the results. Those lessons continue to guide my work to this day. Overall, the choices I made during these years were not so much of a person as deeply immersed in this hobby as in the past, but more pragmatic choices as a person who wanted to keep my hands in my lifelong interest while life called me elsewhere. Who was I to know that the coming decades would depend so much on the foundation I had built during this “quiet time”.
2010s – Milestones and New Directions
As I moved into the 2010s, personal and professional changes would steer my photography in unpredictable directions.
In mid-2009, I was diagnosed with severely clogged coronary arteries requiring bypass surgery and extended recovery. The downtime gave me opportunity to reflect on what mattered. My children were approaching independence, and my wife suggested we spend more time together away from the house – then asked about learning photography herself. With only the Rebel XT available, I brought my beloved EOS Elan out of retirement. In early 2010 when I felt better and weather improved, we started getting out more – her with the XT, me returning to film.
As we were finding our rhythm, tragedy struck. Our older son died in an accident in June 2010. He had continued using the A490 I’d bought for his band trip, storing photos and videos on his personal computer. Everything stopped as we dealt with this devastating loss. Later, I quietly returned the A490 to my collection and preserved all his images and videos. I used that camera a few times afterward, notably on a trip to visit friends in Georgia, but eventually retired it as a working yet mostly sentimental piece of history.
These events made me realize I’d become lax in using photography for its original purpose – recording life around me. Photos of family and events while the children grew were few and far between, limited mostly to holidays. I’ll forever kick myself for letting those opportunities slip away. But the road back to rediscovering photography’s purpose was neither simple nor easy.
For several months I drifted, taking photos sporadically. But winds were changing from an unexpected direction – mobile photography.
Being a lifelong techie, I’d followed cell phone technology’s evolution, including the addition of cameras. The convenience of a device that could photograph and instantly share while making calls proved addictive to many users. Brought up with dedicated cameras, I wasn’t ready to rely completely on phones for photography, but I saw value for casual shooting.
When Microsoft introduced Windows Phone, I was attracted to using it as an extension of my home computer. In late 2010 I purchased an LG C900 with slide-out keyboard and a surprisingly capable camera – all pocket-sized. I remained skeptical about replacing my DSLR entirely, but it gave me a way to stay active in photography when carrying dedicated equipment wasn’t practical. I found myself shooting more often, though I had to carefully manage storage space on the phone.
The experience of pulling the Elan from retirement sent me down a nostalgic trail thinking about how much further I could have taken 35mm photography. Searching online, I found many advanced EOS cameras but settled on what would have been the Elan’s successor – the A2E. It featured the world’s first Eye Controlled Focus (ECF) system, detecting which of five focus points the photographer’s eye was looking at and automatically adjusting focus. In theory this made focus tracking faster and more accurate, but it had a weakness – it didn’t work well for eyeglass wearers like me. Still, it was an interesting novelty at the right price to satisfy that nostalgic curiosity.
It arrived with a common issue – a faulty mode dial. With Canon no longer servicing their SLRs, I found a third-party repair shop. What returned looked immaculate – not only fixed, but completely cleaned and overhauled. I shot several rolls with it at a zoo and local wildlife refuge, enjoying the experience. But film and processing costs, plus finding reputable labs becoming increasingly difficult, meant the A2E saw only occasional use… though the feeling never really went away.
In 2011, another key event brought photography back into focus. My youngest son expressed interest in a possible military career and wanted to check out the local Civil Air Patrol squadron. CAP is the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, offering cadets a program to learn leadership skills in a military setting. We visited together – he eventually decided on a different direction, but I stayed. I found somewhere I could contribute knowledge and skills. The area that interested me? Public Affairs – writing articles and photographing CAP activities to promote the squadron and organization. It gave me something to focus creative skills on, getting regular practice with my Rebel XT, and feeling like I was moving forward again.
For the next several years I grew into the PAO role – articles published in local papers, organizing public events, bringing attention to the organization. I gained a modest reputation and was recommended to help with Encampment, an annual week-long cadet event. I didn’t aspire to it initially because I didn’t feel my equipment was adequate. My mobile photography had progressed – from the C900 to a Nokia 520, eventually to an LG V10 when Microsoft ended Windows Phone support, each with increasingly advanced cameras that gradually outperformed my aging Rebel XT. But Encampment’s rigors demanded a dedicated DSLR – and a robust one at that.
In the summer of 2015, my youngest son finished high school, and we marked the occasion with an ambitious family trip – a day touring New York City, a three-night cruise to St. John, New Brunswick, then back to New York before flying home. It was, though we didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, the last traditional family vacation – all four of us departing and returning together before college and life’s next chapters began pulling us in different directions. I chose to bring both the A2E and the Rebel XT on the trip, a crossroads of modern digital technology and the familiar comfort of film to capture this family milestone.
Winter 2016/2017. My wife mentioned she knew how much I enjoyed PAO work and thought I’d more than paid my dues using the XT for nearly 11 years. She encouraged me to at least look at newer models. One weekend I visited a camera shop and explained my background and long use of the XT. The salesman was surprised at how much I’d accomplished with such an old camera and convinced me I was ready for professional-grade gear. He showed me two models – an EOS 5D Mark III and EOS 7D Mark II – recommending the 7D based on my shooting style and APS-C familiarity. But cost was an issue.
Then fate intervened. That same night, my wife and I visited a local casino for fun. I hit a jackpot that more than covered the 7D’s price – we were both shocked. The next day I returned to the camera shop, told the salesman the story, and he said “I guess you were meant to buy this camera.” And so I did.
The 7D was more advanced than anything I’d ever owned – truly professional-grade, big, heavy, built like a tank. The XT looked like a toy beside it. It took adjustment, but as I learned its capabilities I came to appreciate what it could do that either wasn’t possible before or required far more finesse. It reminded me of stepping up from the XG-A to the X-570 years ago. As I grew comfortable with it, I was again approached about serving at Encampment – and this time I accepted. I added a battery grip to extend shooting time for long field days, and felt ready.
But I didn’t forget the XT – my faithful camera still had plenty of life. I set it up as backup for the 7D, finding a battery grip so it too could handle long field days. At Encampment, I worked with cadet PAO staff all expected to take photos and write articles. One cadet didn’t have a camera, so I assigned her the XT. She used it daily, and it continued performing flawlessly. The event succeeded wildly, with the PAO team contributing significantly. I was invited back the following year and accepted.
Between years, I decided to finally retire the XT from hard service. But I’d grown spoiled having two DSLR bodies. My finances had improved, and I began looking for a replacement. I decided to move into full-frame digital where image size matched 35mm film, and professional-grade gear was the only option that made sense. I targeted a 5D Mark III – prices were dropping as the Mark IV gained market share. In early 2018 I found a used one, delighted to discover its controls were identical to the 7D, making switching between them fluid and intuitive. I outfitted it with a battery grip and suitable lens, and finally retired the XT from service.
As cadets used these cameras more frequently, I sometimes wanted one in hand for teaching and grabbing scenes where I was the only PAO around. I picked up a used PowerShot SX500 IS – small, easily carried, pocket-sized, filling the need perfectly.
The 2018 Encampment was even more successful. I pushed all three cameras to do things unimaginable with the XT. Most interesting was using the 7D’s intervalometer function – taking photos at regular intervals for time-lapse sequences that became segments in the camp video showcasing the week’s activities.
As the decade neared its end, I was well entrenched in the hobby again – professional-grade equipment, teaching interest renewed, wanting to get out and record whenever and wherever, earning respect from those who saw my work. But nostalgia crept in, taking thoughts in a different direction. I began exploring EOS camera history and the collection I’d created – from the Elan to the Rebel XT, the A2E, then the 7D Mark II and 5D Mark III. The urge to use those old 35mm cameras again, fueled by the Elan and A2E experiences, grew stronger.
I started looking for old Minolta X-series cameras and found plenty available. I decided to reconstruct my past – first finding an X-570, later an XG-A, having both professionally refurbished (by the same shop that worked on the A2E), and outfitting them with similar lenses and accessories. Fortunately I still had the original gadget bag, and the recreation was complete. I even shot film through the X-570, feeling that old “ker-chunk” as the shutter fired, transported back decades.
But I didn’t stop there. Collecting had bitten me. I next stumbled across a rarity – the only manual-focus camera Canon ever made with EF lenses, the Canon EF-M. Unlike other Canon cameras, the EF-M had no EOS circuitry (EOS stands for “Electro-Optical System,” referring to autofocus), so it was never considered part of the EOS family. Made only for the Japan market, finding them in the U.S. was rare. I managed to acquire one with its kit lens and added it to my collection.
One last technology bump before decade’s end came in mobile photography – trading my LG V10 for a Samsung Galaxy S9+. The LG had reached end of life, and the S9+ offered a larger screen and better features, including an improved camera system. I had embraced phone cameras for snapshot work, and they reminded me that it’s not just the equipment, but the memories you capture that make the difference.
2020s – Renaissance of Purpose
Through it all, one habit persisted: the weekly recipe documentation that had begun in September 2018 and would eventually become MikeTriesANewRecipe.com — a quiet but unbroken thread carrying this practice forward into whatever came next.
As the 2010s closed, my photography hobby was spiraling toward a low point. A new job in late 2017 had consumed considerable time and energy, and my move into a Group Commander role in Civil Air Patrol had shifted my focus away from the creative outlet of PAO work. By the time my youngest son graduated from Florida Tech in May 2019 — with a side trip to Kennedy Space Center just an hour from campus — I was picking up my DSLRs only a handful of times a year. If not for the weekly cooking challenge I’d set for myself the previous fall, I might not have touched a camera at all.
The interest never died, but the winds were changing. After graduation, my son half-jokingly suggested I think about finishing my own degree — the one I’d walked away from in 1987. He then got serious, pointing out that I’d finished raising him and his sister and now I could focus on myself. That fall I gave the idea more serious thought. My career had been in data analysis, and the logical next step was to move into Data Science. What happened next was pure serendipity — completely out of character for someone who typically researches every decision methodically.
My wife was having outpatient surgery on December 31, 2019, and while I sat in the waiting room scrolling through my phone I came across a Maryville University of Saint Louis post promoting their Data Science program. What caught my attention was their focus on working adults looking to grow their skills, combined with no application fees, no hidden charges, and a generous credit transfer policy. I requested more information, which led to a ninety-minute conversation with an admissions counselor two weeks later. After confirming my company’s support through their tuition assistance program, I submitted my application and was accepted.
There was another motivation beyond career advancement. The son I’d lost in 2010 had dreamed of going to college but never had the chance. I decided to dedicate this journey to him, and carried his memory with me every step of the way.
Stepping into this commitment meant stepping back from others. I resigned my Group Commander role and went inactive in CAP — this required my complete attention. About the same time, the global COVID pandemic arrived and upended nearly everything. My determination only grew. With all coursework already online, I had no reason to change course.
For the next two-plus years, most evenings and weekends belonged to school. Photography disappeared almost completely — the weekly cooking posts were the sole exception, and were limited to my phone as pulling out the DSLRs was too much overhead for social media content. But something unexpected happened by late 2020. Two years of weekly posts had created a real problem: I was losing track of what I’d already cooked and feared repeating dishes, while some source recipes were disappearing offline. When I floated the idea of a dedicated website on social media, the response from my followers was immediate and enthusiastically in favor. In January 2021, MikeTriesANewRecipe.com launched. What had started as a personal cooking challenge had become a genuine creative project, and it continues to this day.
In October 2022, I submitted my final assignment and completed my Bachelor’s degree in Data Science — magna cum laude. The last day of class fell two days before my 60th birthday. My wife and I flew to Georgia to celebrate with family and friends, and I brought both DSLRs along, spending time playing tourist and simply shooting for fun. Somewhere on that trip, between the degree behind me and the camera back in my hands, I remembered how much I’d missed this.
Rolling into 2023 with no outside obligations consuming my time, photography began finding its footing again. The collecting instinct rekindled — I’d previously acquired the Canon EF-M, a genuine rarity as the only completely manual camera Canon made with the EF mount. To this I added the EOS RT, introduced to address action photographers’ need for an uninterrupted viewfinder. Its pellicle mirror — semi-transparent and stationary — allowed continuous viewing even during exposure. With only 25,000 ever made, finding one in clean working condition at a reasonable price was worth acting on.
A longer-simmering interest also came back into focus that year: converting my film archive to digital. Decades of negatives sat in storage boxes, most unseen for years. I’d previously experimented with a Pacific Image scanner and found the results unsatisfying. A different approach had gained traction online — using DSLRs to photograph negatives, then processing them in software. I found Valoi’s Easy35, a self-contained 35mm scanning system with film carrier and LED light source, at a price that made sense. A Canon factory refurbished 100mm f/2.8 macro lens found during a half-price sale completed the setup. Early results were mixed as I worked to understand the conversion process, but the potential was clear enough to keep pursuing.
2023 also brought milestones worth documenting. I traveled to Saint Louis to walk the stage at my Maryville graduation — doing it for myself, and for the son I’d dedicated the journey to. My youngest son and his then-fiancée made the trip alongside my wife, and he served as my photographer for the ceremony, the skills from his youth holding up beautifully. We followed graduation with an afternoon at the Gateway Arch, where I played tourist with a camera in hand. Later that year, the sudden loss of one of my brothers brought the family together in Georgia — a somber trip where photography took on a documentary purpose, recording family gathered in difficult circumstances. My wife’s and my 30th wedding anniversary that fall provided a contrast — a cabin near Broken Bow, Oklahoma, the autumn landscape around Beavers Bend Lake offering the kind of unhurried shooting opportunities I hadn’t had in years.
Momentum continued building into 2024. That spring, my son and his new wife invited me to an airshow at a local military base — something I hadn’t attended in years. The featured act was the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, whom I’d never seen perform in person. Security restrictions limited me to one body and one lens, which made for an interesting constraint. I chose my best action body — the 7D Mark II — paired with an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM, and committed to making it work. By the end of the day I had shot over 1,200 frames, more than any single day in my photographic life. Reviewing them confirmed I was mostly on mark technically but noticeably rusty on action sequences — and it set something larger in motion. Looking back through those images, I found myself thinking again about everything sitting undeveloped and unscanned in those storage boxes.
Later that year my wife and I returned to Broken Bow, and she asked if I’d use her camera to photograph the resort for sharing with colleagues. I spent an afternoon and evening with her consumer-grade equipment covering the same ground I would have covered with my own. When I reviewed the results at home, the quality was indistinguishable from what I’d have gotten with my gear under the same conditions. It was a simple reminder of something I already knew intellectually but needed to feel again — it’s not the camera, it’s the person behind it. I headed into 2025 with a renewed sense of purpose.
Early 2025 brought that sense of purpose into action on several fronts.
The idea that had been forming since the airshow crystallized: I wanted to catalog my lifetime of images — film and digital — initially to select the best for display at home, but the vision grew into something larger. A place to share the journey with family and friends, and perhaps anyone else who might find inspiration in it. That became the genesis of the website you’re reading now.
Film photography had been experiencing a broader cultural renaissance, and I decided it was time to rejoin it seriously — not tentatively, but with commitment and proper equipment. After narrowing the field I chose the Canon EOS-3, one of the last professional-grade film SLRs Canon produced before converting entirely to digital, sharing the 45-point autofocus system and advanced exposure controls of my digital bodies. Acquired completely refurbished with a power booster, it felt immediately familiar in hand.
On the digital side, I revisited my film scanning setup and concluded the 5D Mark III wasn’t delivering the results I needed. A trade brought in the 5D Mark IV — in my estimation the finest DSLR Canon ever produced — and with it a scanning workflow that finally delivered on the promise I’d seen in 2023.
Looking across the collection I’d assembled over fifty years, a pattern emerged: the Minolta X-570, EOS Elan, A2E, 7D Mark II, EOS-3, 5D Mark IV — each represented the best available in its era. Add the unique models like the EF-M and RT, and I had assembled something closer to a working museum than a simple equipment kit.
That same September, a phone call arrived from a former CAP colleague who had returned to the area and found the local squadron in need of help. He was reaching out to everyone he’d served with. I had missed being part of CAP’s purpose, and his call was the catalyst I needed to return.
With film camera, digital system, and CAP membership all recommitted, 2025 became a year of focused work. Shakedown shoots with the EOS-3 at Hagerman and Frank Buck Zoo confirmed the camera performed exactly as expected and that switching between film and digital required less adjustment than anticipated. Systematic testing identified a preferred film stock for ongoing use. Wildlife photography at Hagerman revealed a clear equipment gap — longer reach was needed, particularly for birds in flight — and provided clear direction for the next acquisition. Macro work with the 100mm lens opened another creative avenue worth developing further.
Fifty years after that first Diana F, the practice feels not like something recovered but something still unfolding. The archive is only partially digitized. The wildlife lens is on the horizon. The blog is waiting to be filled. The best chapters may still be ahead.
The journey continues…