Starting with an idea

It all begins with an idea. When I was a child I always had a love for arts. And so many different mediums are available to express your creativity in art. Oil pastels, water colors, drypoint etching, to pencils, charcoal and paints. I used all these at one point or another. When I was in high school I did find that photography a cool way for me to express my art. I began by using 35mm and disposal cameras that my family had. This was the start.

When I was a senior I got my first “real” camera. It was a Minolta SLR 35mm. Finally something with a zoom lens! I would head to Walgreens and buy rolls of film, burn through that roll and be back getting it developed. In the one-hour photo kiosk of course. At that time I had no cell phones, no computer, no way to see the photos as soon as we shot them, so I would get 3x5 prints with every roll developed. The only choice I knew in editing was to choose glossy or matte finish on the prints.

Fast forward about 15 years, I still have that old Minolta, but did dabble with digital camera’s, Cannon DLSR and mirrorless. I also learned about editing programs like Lightroom. We all have supercomputers with super cameras in our pockets and YouTube tutorials at our fingertips talking about the latest and greatest digital cameras.

I was sitting on my couch, having coffee with my wife Katie. Our kids were playing, our old dog was nervous because our new puppy was attacking the cat. And we were all at home because of a pandemic. I thought about pulling out my Minolta. I had no idea where to get film in 2020. But I had Google to tell me. I found that old Minolta has some fog on the lens but other than that still worked as I remembered. I took a roll of pictures and started an Instagram page just for my photography. This was the start of picking up an old hobby and re-learning the art of film photography.