AR_the old guy's photostream  

I have been taking photos since the late 1950's; but I never thought of posting them or showing them around until very recently.

My late father was an amateur photographer and did his own black and white developing and printing in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. I learned the ABC's of black and white printing from him in the basement of our home. My late parents were dedicated travellers and my father documented their travels to many distant places with an extensive library of photo-albums.

My first camera was a Brownie Instamatic and I used it on family trips and outings. From those beginings, travel photography became my interest.

My late parents were also arts lovers and collected as many paintings, drawings and sculptures as their finances could afford. As a youngster, I was surrounded by art and music.

The first and only 35 mm SLR I purchased circa 1970 was a Mamiya Sekor with a bag-full of add-on lenses, converters, a couple of filters, flash, etc. It was a pain to lug around, but I have a desk drawer full of slides and negatives of my travels.

In about 1995, I got rid of the SLR and purchased a Pentax point and shoot 35 mm with manual over-rides and a built-in zoom lens. It served me well on my travels and taking family snapshots. Now that I'm retired, I have begun the lengthy process of reviewing my travel photo negatives from the 1990's and early 2000's and have begun digitizing and posting them to my photostream.

My first digital camera was an Olympus D560Z. It has a moderate zoom range, but limited options on manual over-rides. I quickly outgrew its potential although a number of images from that camera are on my Flickr page.

In 2008, I received a Canon G9 as a Father's Day gift and I loved the camera. I enjoyed exploring the full creative potential of the camera. In late 2009, I acquired a "Bower" adapter with filters for UV, a polarizing ring, and 2 ND filters. A wide-angle adapter was a more recent addition and was used in 2010. The one criticism of the G9 was the noisy low-light images.

In early 2011, I acquired an Olympus E-PL2 and have just begun exploring its potential. Now that I am retired, I hope to improve my photographic eye and post-production skills.

I have to credit my daughter, now a mature adult, who rekindled my interest in the art of photography. She studied fine art at university and specialized in photography. To her credit, she consulted me often to critique her work and I thank her for gaining an appreciation for the technical and artistic aspects of photography - to interpret our environs as a means of self-expression.

My Photoshop skills are still emerging. Most of my pre-2009 images were done without benefit of layers. I used cropping, curves, levels, simple colour balancing and I've tried my hand at dodging and burning as well. Since the summer of 2009, I have begun exploring the potential of layers to adjust and tone my images. Kudos to my daughter and son-in-law for having the patience to teach me the basics of adjustment layers in Photoshop; however, the final products are my responsibility.

I believe Mother Nature presents us with some truly magnificent scenery and opportunities; it's up to the artistic photographer to capture and interpret them to inspire others.