I sat at the family dining table holding it, the Minolta STsi. My first camera. My mom sat with me; she had been the family photographer and it was her Pentax and its lovely shutter slap that awakened in me a love of photography. Under the warm white incandescent bulbs of the dining room, I loaded my first roll of Kodak Gold. The sun had set that day, picture taking would have to wait, but dreaming had begun.

My Brother's Propane Fire Training - circa 2001

When a fire fighter is training on a propane burn, it is such an event that the families are invited to come and witness the exercise. Did you know, fire fighters do not set out to extinguish the flame with water, but to hold the flame back while a fire fighter reaches in to turn off the fuel. The fire must be extinguished by the loss of fuel or the invisible propane could reignite, leading to a disaster.

I carried that Minolta for nearly a decade, until the inevitable digital DSLR arrived. The Nikon D7000 sounded much different than my Minolta. It sounded fast. Yet, I was at a stage in my photo journey that created in me a desire to simply fix everything in post. I traded composition for convenience. I’m glad blurry photos are still considered art…I have plenty of those. I nearly gave it up 8 years later as I sat at my computer and wondered why my photos looked so bland.

The sun setting over Lake Nasworthy, October 2011

West Texas doesn’t have much to boast about. Yet, our sunsets and sunrises are so beautiful they could make you cry.

The Challenge

It was December 2018, and the weather had been mild. New Year’s Day was approaching. I’d never been much for resolutions, but I set one for myself that time. 2019 was going to be a photo challenge year. One photo per week using only my nifty 50!

It was as if I had finally become aware of how photos were taken. I learned how to lean into the beauty of bokeh, zoom with my feet, and get better angles. I had been using my 18-200mm zoom lens as a crutch for too long. Recently, I watched a video about photography by Johannes Brandt Gonzales. He said, “Constraints don’t limit creativity, it gives it somewhere to land.” My creativity had landed, and my love of photography had been rekindled. You can view the blog from this challenge at 50/50 blog, you’ll notice I didn’t actually finish the 50 weeks, but that may not have been the goal.

The above photos are from the 2019 photo challenge. This was before Lightroom’s blur tool was even invented, so the bokeh you see is a result of optics.

New Beginnings

A Quiet Walk