Golden light

As most of you know I really like photography.  It is a great hobby and often a challenge to capture a scene that is breathtaking to my eye.  Some of the photos on my blog were set up on a tripod with timer but the rest were ones that I shot just standing and looking for something to catch my eye.  And my wife has snapped several of me that she found particularly amusing.  I use a Nikon D90 digital SLR. It's a great camera in my opinion. I carry about 4 lenses with me and also carry along my old Nikon D70 which is old but my first digital camera. I still have a string of old Nikon SLR's from the film days that are in great shape. 

Photography is something that allows me to try to capture the world around me. Some of what I photograph is beautiful and some of it is not beautiful in a conventional sense. I have a fascination with tugboats but they aren't really beautiful to most people.  I like old houses because they seem to be forgotten, yet still have a heart and soul.  And of course, I like to photograph anything to do with the ocean and estuary.

It's hard to describe how it feels to get a shot that you really like. I take lots of photos but sometimes I can't capture what my eye sees. I think that's the challenge of photography. There is so much more to it than just the mechanics--there's feeling and light and all the many nuances that surround you at the moment that you see something you want to capture forever. There aren't many ways to capture those golden moments or that special feeling. It stays in your mind for a while but to have an image of it that will last....well, that's pretty neat.

I still look at those old Kodak black and whites from my childhood. My memory of that time is pretty dim but when I see the photos, I can see things so much better.  I see the little kid who looks a bit tentative but is smiling. I see my beautiful mother and handsome father holding me.  I can't tell whether they are happy or not.  I look closer and see that my mother often looks tired.  My father looks proud but also old because his hair was already completely gray when I was born.  I was the baby born when they were in their early 40's--an unexpected arrival.

I see the progression of images in old photo albums that show me getting taller.  The eyes show a much older kid than what is pictured and the smile is brave, almost resigned.  I have a few photos showing me in full blown happiness--laughing with my cousin in a pool, playing with the dog, riding my horse.  I wish that I could remember each and every one of those days.  But they have all run together for the most part.  I catch glimpses of them through the photos and those trigger some memories that make me smile or make me pensive.  Photos don't capture the feelings but evoke them.

The photos I take today will be the ones that I will look back on in years to come.  I hope that they  will have preserved those things that are important to me so that I can look back and conjure up something magical as time goes by.