I received my first camera the year I graduated high school. Superman bought it for me. It was a Pentax K1000. I’m sure he had no idea how much I was going to love that camera … or the fact that he was going to buy me my second, third and fourth cameras too, for various wedding anniversaries … or especially the fact that we would eventually use that very camera to take pictures of our three newborn children … but there it was, in bright birthday wrapping on my 18th birthday, ready for me to discover.

My first pictures were the summer after high school. We went to Disneyland – Superman and me, and two of our friends, L and D. I took a ton of pictures that day. I zoomed in on faces, got lots of “buddy shots” and had plenty of pastel-muted Disneyland landscape in the background. When I first got those pictures back from Sav-on, I leaned against the glass counter, flipped through them, and fell in love. I was hooked.

After that, it was a rapid succession of shutter shots: my first days of college, our newborn nephew, my first Christmas back home, my roommates. Continue reading →