In The Beginning

Some of you regulars around here may wonder how I got started in the picture-taking business. Well, I was reminded of that by the wedding pictures I posted just the other day. Way back in 2001, I was invited to the wedding of an old friend in Key West. I took my little cheap digital camera with me, and wandered all over the island the day before the wedding. I'd been taking pictures for years (I remember a 35MM camera emblazoned with Sam The Eagle from the 1984 Olympics in LA), but none of the pictures I had taken before that weekend had ever excited me the way the pictures from Key West did. The palm tree above was probably my favorite picture of the whole weekend, but there were literally dozens and dozens of great shots. I was a little frustrated, though, because the old Kodak DC 280 camera I was using only had 1 megapixel. Within two weeks, I had a fancy new 3 megapixel Kodak DC 4800, and I was a photographer. The shot below is from that same weekend, and was taken from the deck of the Schooner Western Union during the wedding itself. I almost missed the boat (literally) before the wedding, because I was off taking pictures.