The Good Earth Photograph

My father gave me a Kodak Instamatic camera when I was eleven years old, and I was immediately intrigued with it. I took pictures of everything, both to see if the picture showed something different from what I saw but also to learn the camera’s operation. Often the picture didn’t quite correlate with what I envisioned. I was able to take a photography class in high school and again in college but am mostly self-taught. I soon realized though that what I liked to take pictures of would not support a family. Shooting images became a hobby indulged on vacation and those brief moments when not working. In 2003 when digital photography was supplanting film, our home burned down in a Southern California wildfire. All my film cameras were lost. This quickened my transition to digital. Moving into this type of photography allowed me to see the images immediately which was very satisfying. I am fascinated by photography’s primary attribute of sealing moments in time that are unique and will never be exactly the same again. When sharing this aspect with a viewer, their input helps me to define why I took the shot and to learn their connection to the image. Please enjoy my photos with hopefully the same wonder and appreciation as when they were captured.