THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
The first thing we want you to know about the photographers, Ed and Norma, is that they love Jesus and are overwhelmed by His love and the job He has done of creating this beautiful planet.
Photography interested me at an early age. I saved margarine packages to earn a free Anco box camera before age ten. It was great fun, but film wasn't free, so I had to be careful not to use too much. Saving film and waiting several days to get the results back aren't concerns in today's digital age. Through junior and senior high school the camera was used mainly for family pictures and pictures of outings with friends. College didn't increase the use of the camera much. After college a friend showed me the brand new 35 mm slide film camera he had bought, and I was hooked.
My fiance, being very nice to me, agreed that we should buy a 35 mm slide camera for Christmas before we were married. We still have that Yashica Lynx 1000, but it hasn't seen much use in the past twenty years. The shutter sticks some, and I can't always count on accurate shutter speeds. It had a feature that we came to appreciate, a light meter that didn't show numbers but did show with an indicator the approximate level of light available. It took a few rolls of film to get used to the best readings from the indicator, but once we got used to it, we were able to adjust the shutter opening and/or speed to the desired levels quickly. This camera helped us learn to get close to the subject since it had no zoom lens.
Our first big test of our new camera and its use came in the summer of 1964 as we took an eight-week camping honeymoon across the United States. We used slide film and had a stock of Kodak mailers for processing. The slides were mailed to our parents in Pennsylvania, so we didn't get to see any of them until we returned from the eight-week trip. We were pleased with the results. During the trip Norma and I shared the camera, and we discovered that we liked the results of our work no matter who took the photos.
Our next camera was a Sigma SA300 with a zoom lens. It provided many years of enjoyment and lots of great pictures. Meantime our collection of 35 mm slides was growing, and it was getting difficult to find the slide we wanted when we wanted it. We tried various types of boxes and didn't really find anythjing that worked well until we decided upon a code to use for each picture listing its year, its general subject, its number within that subject, and its orientation. This was combined with a database that listed the code and several key word fields to help make the slides findable according to several sub categories. So, now our slides are stored in loose leaf binders by subject and are easy to find through the use of our database. I guess the next project is to scan them all and store them on discs or external drives.
We purchased a Sigma SA9 SLR with two lenses just a few years before digital cameras became readily available. We did get good use out of it during trips to Alaska and Hawaii, but as it became more difficult to obtain 35 mm film, we purchased a Sony Cyber-shot digital camera. It takes good pictures, but we are saving for our first digital SLR camera comparable to the 35 mm cameras we have had.
Over the past forty-five years we have travelled in and photographed 41 of our great United States. We have had a wonderful time photographing this great land and are pleased to share our joy with you.