My first camera that I can remember clearly was a Kodak Instamatic thingy that used 110 film in those stupid little cartridges. However, I KNOW I used something before that because I remember my parents got me THAT because they got sick of loading film in some other thing that I THINK I dug out of my grandparents basement, because I couldn’t get the film to work in it.

At a fairly early age, I learned to use my father’s Ashai-Pentax SLR film camera. This was a late ’60s-early 70s camera that required a separate light meter to get everything right, so I had a lot of practice at an early age with that sort of thing. In Grade 7/8 I was in our school Photography Club and learned how to process film, make enlargements and all the basic darkroom techniques like burning, dodging, and a lot more. For the next 5-6 years, I futilely hoped that my parents would help me set up a darkroom of my own. Sadly, that never happened.

I moved out at age 18, and for several years after that, whenever I had the money for photography I didn’t have the time, and when I had the time, I didn’t have the money. I had every intention of installing a darkroom in my first home, but it never came to pass. Other than snapshots and reading about it, I didn’t do ANYTHING with my passion until I was nearly 30, when I pretty much started everything in my life over from scratch.

I met my (now) wife in 1998 and we moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was there that I got back into photography, first with a point-and-shoot film camera, and then with a borrowed Minolta film SLR. I still had no darkroom, and sadly, there are still rolls of film I shot back then that we never could afford to have processed. In 2001, realizing film just was not working for my needs and that digital cameras could finally make at least a 4×6 print, we decided to use a layaway plan to buy a “demonstrator” Canon Powershot S10 from Carsand-Mosher in Halifax. The battery sucked from being used as a demonstrator, the press-button-to-shutter-release was damn slow, and it was barely able to make much more than a 5×7 printout, but I was finally able to take photos again without wondering when (or if) I may see the results.

It was around this time that I contracted a chronic illness, and after struggling with things for another year we decided to move back to Ontario in 2002. After 2 years of fighting to get my disability pension sorted out, I found I was entitled to a small, lump-sum financial settlement. I used a portion of that to purchase my first Canon Digital Rebel and a 75-300mm lens. Since then I have scrounged, scrimped and saved to add to my equipment in the hopes of someday being able to make photography into a career. In 2007, a part broke inside my Rebel, but thanks to some fortunate bank financing I was able to buy a used Canon Rebel XTi (400D) to succeed it. I’ve added other bits and pieces when we’ve had tax refunds or have been able to save up to get used stuff (80%+ of my equipment has been bought used).

Due to some bad experiences in online photo communities and disappointment in general with my abilities and physical limitations, I put down my camera for most of the second half of 2008 and almost gave up on photography altogether. Recently, though, I have started to get the bug again, and I’m trying to overcome all the issues before me to get back into taking pictures. And maybe – just maybe – I might someday I might be able to make something of this desire I have to capture light to share with others.