The first camera I can remember using was my grandmother's Kodak Brownie 2. It had a single element Meniscus lens and a view finder not much more than a half inch across. It was about the most basic camera you could find, but it set a course for the rest of my life.

In high school I spent more time in the darkroom than in class. I joke that my high school yearbook was my high school yearbook. During those years I also worked for a local photo studio shooting weddings on weekends.

In college I immediately joined the student newspaper and became the photo editor in my junior year. In my senior year as a chemistry major, my life as a photographer and trying to get through Physical Chemistry, just got to be too much. I had to give up photography or never graduate.

Grad school, a real job and no darkroom produced a long photographic dry spell. Then with a little more money and a little more time, I picked up a Linhof 617 panoramic camera and I was back into it.

Since then I've been shooting with that 6x17 panoramic, a Mamiya 6x7 with its super wide 43mm lens and a 5x7 Rittreck view camera, my absolute favorite. As film has become difficult to find, and with the introduction of cameras like the Canon 5D-Mark II and its 21 megapixel sensor, I have been shooting more and more digital.

I'll be adding new photos from time-to-time, so please check back once in a while and see what's new.

Michael
Last changed September 29, 2011