> Because it's the closest thing to something magical I've found. Wow, how that resonates with me. Magic. It's always been magical for me. >From watching the images emerge from the film of my Dad's Polaroid Land camera (ca. 1965), to my first shaky photograph (of my brother from his Kodak Instamatic 44), to happening on the treasure trove of old photo equipment in my Dad's closet (especially the Brownies) where I found my first 35mm rangefinder camera, shot a roll of Kodachrome, and fell in love with the sharp and colorful translucence of transparencies, to the oohs and aahs from my mom when she reviewed my first color prints of nature, to my first encounter with John Shaw's photography when I realized how exquisitely nature can be reproduced in print, to the first appearance in developer of my b+w prints (the dark room permeated with the pungency of acetic acid), to learning about the concept of stock photography (You mean I can market images I've already produced? More than once?), to my first publication (a kayker in Canoe magazine), to learning about the power of Photoshop (in my first PS class at a local community college, version 1.5), to producing my first viable inkjet print 8 years ago on Arches 90# cold press watercolor paper (a technique I learned from a stranger I met while photographing in the Tetons early one morning), to being awed by the quality of digital from my first digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 950), to being stunned by the quality of the first print I produced from my Nikon D100 digital SLR (it had a subtle 3-dimensional quality that I'd never seen and hadn't at all expected) To every single time the shutter clicks, whether digital or analog, as I anticipate (either microseconds or a few days) emergence from latency It's Magic. And that's what photography means for me. Thanks Marilyn for the reminder. Jim On 4/21/05 11:37 AM, Marilyn wrote:
