My Best Photographic Work So Far

My First Picture with My Nikon 1 Point-and-Shoot

My much older brother used to take pictures when I was young.  In those days, those relatively primitive days when there weren’t many prominent Japanese cameras, when Polaroid Instant Cameras were the rage and you could almost instantly see what you just shot—in not so good quality, but hey, it was quick—a time when you actually put film in cameras, he took pictures. 

As I recall, he didn’t print many of them.  Rather, he had them developed as a “slide,” the tiny image placed within a thin, square piece of cardboard.  They were then grouped in a tray, either rectangular or circular I believe, and projected onto a screen or wall.  I remember how great it was as a little guy to see large pictures that he took of people and landscapes.  It all seemed exotically wonderful.

I remember my mom and dad had two cameras in my childhood: a basic Voigtlander and a Polaroid.  I remember as a youth routinely looking through all of the scrapbooks from my family’s past and enjoying the old black and white prints and the occasional color prints.

When it came time for high school, I guess I saw myself as an aspiring photographer and took some Polaroid pictures of the Pep Squad at the beginning of my junior year.  I believe those pictures eventually got me the title of Photographer for the Red and Black student newspaper, which in my senior year I would be its Associate Editor.  I remember the thrill of composing shots, taking them, then seeing them in print in the newspaper.

My best buddy at BYU, Bill Harten, was more established as a photographer, and developed (no pun intended!) a business using his photography taking group pictures of girls living in the Heritage Halls dorm houses on campus.  He left for his LDS mission the next year, and at his suggestion I took over his business.  I would arrange a day to take the pictures when most of the girls were there, arrange the gaggle of giggling girls, take the picture, have them developed as an 8x10 color print in Florida somewhere for about a dollar, and sell them to the most of the individual girls for $5.00.  What a great little entrepreneurial job that paid well without a lot of work or upfront expense!

From then until 2012, a space of some 40 years, I always enjoyed looking at pictures, but never had the urge to buy a camera and start taking them.  I can’t definitively say why other than I was not emotionally connected with myself and was living a “shoulder to the wheel” provide-for-my-family existence.  I suspect that because of my journey in psychotherapy, both as a practitioner and as the one “being practiced on,” and because my wife challenges me to introspect and decide what I want, I became more aware of what excited me, and perhaps more importantly, that I could do something about it.  I remembered the excitement of photography and challenged myself to do something about it!

I was soon gifted a little “Cool Pix Point-and-Shoot” camera for my birthday, I think, in 2012, and began taking pictures.  The excitement quickly returned. I realized that I had an emotional attachment to landscape scenes as opposed to taking pictures of people, so many of the pictures then, and most of my pictures now, are of natural beauty that pleases my eye and which delights me.

I have become very attached to nature.  Besides my hobbies of bringing home rocks from hikes and growing bonsai plants, I love to take pictures of oceans, lakes, streams, mountains, rocks, and just landscapes in general. 

The benefit of digital cameras (I now have a high-end Nikon 1 “point-and-shoot” with a second telephoto lens, and I will in the future probably graduate to a “real” SLR camera) is that you can see immediately what you just thought you saw, as opposed to the old days when you never knew.  I like lying back after having taken a bunch of pictures and going through my camera, looking at the images, seeing what I shot, and congratulate myself for some outstanding pictures.

The Nikon 1 allows me to focus on the image and compose it without having to deal with f-stops and shutter speeds.  The downside is that sometimes the automatic nature of the camera does not lend itself to the image, and it doesn’t turn out as great as it might have.  The upside is that most of the time, the Nikon gets it right, and the image that is taken is pretty decent.  Usually, the only major decision I have to make is whether to use the telephoto lens or not, like the one pictured above.  Otherwise, I point and shoot! It’s so fun!  And I will occasionally bring out the old Cool Pix, and take pictures with my I-Phone if I’m without my Nikon 1.

I have been privileged to take pictures at Bryce Canyon National Park, Kodachrome State Park, and Grand Staircase National Park in southern Utah.  I’ve also taken pictures at Yosemite National Park, on our cruise to Alaska, at The Huntington Gardens and Descanso Gardens near where I live, at the ocean, and most recently, at Joshua Tree National Park and Palm Springs.  Sometimes, I just find natural beauty in my front yard (my beautiful camellias!) or along a nearby street.  God’s beauty is on display if you look for it.

So someone whom I respect and relies on photography for work that he does informed me that a photographer needs to take 10,000 photographs to really become good.  Since having my two cameras for nearly three years, I figure I’ve taken about 2000 pictures with my cell phone, Cool Pix and Nikon 1.  I’d believe that I am getting better and yearn to take the other 8000!

I long for opportunities to see nature in all its resplendent beauty, and often its majesty in the mountains, the deserts, the oceans, the local gardens. I want to see the loveliness then record the natural images. It feeds my soul! It also gives me satisfaction that I indeed am an amateur photographer—a pretty decent one!  

But I recognize my lack of knwledge, my limitations.  I'm sure they are evident to any professional who might look at my work.  For example, I recognize that often the lighting for many of my shots is not optimal.  But in the moment, I'm not looking to create a masterpiece of photography; I'm looking to record a memory in a wonderful way. 

I also recognize the limits of my point-and-shoot cameras; I cannot adjust f-stops, for example, to enhance some foreground images while blurring the background, or play with shutter speeds to deal with lighting issues, or use filters. 

So I am taking pictures for me and my enjoyment, such as they are.  I happen to believe that others as well might enjoy looking at my images and experience a measure of my joy.  Below are some of my best so far.  I hope you enjoy them as much I did taking them and now enjoying them!