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:: bio :: My interest in nature photography began while attending graduate school in Ohio- a terrible classroom day pushed me outside. At the time I owned an Olympus OM-1 with 2 lenses and I took them for a hike to a local park. That hike and those photographs calmed the stir of that day so much that I think that was my baptism to nature photography- sometime in October 1981. Being outside, hiking on and off trails and carrying my camera became a wonderful therapy for the stress and ills of the day-to-day. At the time my work was mostly on negative film and most of the work was flowers, close-ups and scenes. Fast forwarding a few years... A local camera dealer convinced me I needed a camera system that offered more lenses for what I liked to photograph. Ohio camera stores sold Nikon so I bought Nikon. I had an F3 and 3 lenses (35-105, 105mm micro, 200mm micro) and I was able to do enjoy a lot of photography with just that gear. Until I took a bird photograph with the 200 (it was small in the frame but I loved it) on that day I was driven to get a long lens. I was in my first year of teaching but I managed to save the money for a 600/5.6 Nikkor EDIF. It was huge. In fact I was afraid to take that lens out because it was so big. Nature photographers shouldn’t stand out... you shouldn’t even notice them but how do you hide a 3 foot lens? It took some time to get used to... I felt like Rudolf amongst the other reindeer. But my growing love for birds and nature photography pushed the awkwardness aside and I spent most of my time chasing birds with the big lens and photographing everything else (flowers, water, insects and scenes) with the rest of the gear. My film choices were Kodachrome 25 and 64 but the arrival of Fuji films, especially Velvia left me buying only mailers from Kodak. I stayed with Nikon until 1992 when I had three Nikon F4 bodies die in one day... the one camera had been fired less than 100 times. I was photographing captive animals in Vermont and one of the sponsors was Canon. The Canon rep learned of my problems and loaned me an EOS-1 and a lens. I took 3 rolls of film on a mink in a tall grass field. Of the 100 or so shots, all but one was in focus. I went back to Ohio and sold my Nikon gear. The Nikon gear was excellent but at that time a distant 2 nd place to Canon in auto-focus technology. I have used Canon since. The two companies play leap frog for bragging rights. Regardless of the gear, the competition between the companies is a plus for photographers. I shot film exclusively until 2003 when I purchased a Canon EOS 10-D camera for fun. And wow was it fun. I am not sure if all digital is the way to go... editors have been reluctant to accept digital into the editorial market. But the advantages for photographers are many. You have to like playing on the computer. Photoshop is not fun. And of course no moment in the office compares to the feeling of being in the field. :: current gear ::
:: books :: John Shaw’s books are the bible of Nature Photography – if you begin with them you will never have to relearn or unlearn anything. :: links :: I am a lurker to the NSN web site. I appreciate the information that EJ offers and many others. When I do reply I typically post those off line and do my best to avoid some of the pissing contests that can run ad nauseam on-line. NSN does a nice job to quell the contests. <rant>
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