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Photography [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-05-23

I am a dedicated amateur photographer. My very first camera was was a Kodak Brownie box camera that I bought with cereal box tops and a dollar around 1950. I still have the first photo that I took (above) of the pecan grove that surrounded our white shack on Magnolia Avenue in Yuma, Arizona. I later got better at holding the camera steady. This was followed by the gift of a Brownie Hawkeye camera around 1956, which I immediately dropped and broke on a concrete slab. I was despondent, as my dad was out of work often and I had no easy way to replace it, but eventually I did. I was able to get better photos and I was totally sold on photography as a hobby, one which has overlain most of by other hobbies and professional work.

After the Hawkeye I did less photography except with box cameras occasionally and eventually with a 1916 Kodak Kodet bellows camera that my zoology professor at Arizona Western College gave me. Unfortunately the black and white film for that camera became impossible to get after a year or so. He also lent me a medical camera which I used to take a photo of the strange scorpion, Anuroctonus pococki.

When I became a Master’s student at the University of Arizona, I purchased a Mamiya single lens reflex for the second semester of Scientific Illustration. This also got me into developing my own black and white film, as a dark room was next door to the office I shared with two other grad students in the Invertebrate Museum. I had, for the first time, a very bubbly assistant, Margaret, who helped me in the dark room. At that point I also needed skills with a Super Eight Bolex movie camera, as I was filming courtship behavior in jumping spiders. From then on I was never without a camera!, either of my own or of the university where I worked.

At the University of Florida I was able to get a Beaulieu Super Eight movie camera for my continued work on jumping spider courtship and agonistic display. It was fascinating work and to this day I am possibly the only person that has seen and filmed the courtship of several species. In addition, I started photographing landscapes and natural history subjects in the field.

In order to do better photography I finally bought my pride and joy for a number of years, a Nikon FM2n, a descendent of the workhorse Nikon F, the subject of a somewhat off color? song by Pete Seeger.

The Nikon F was a camera of choice for photojournalists during the war in Vietnam,. My FM2n was also a workhouse and I used it for years until two things happened. First, the cost of print and slide film and processing grew prohibitive and second, electronic cameras became the equals or better of print cameras.

Here is one of the last photos I believe that I took with the Nikon FM2n. Most of my photos with the FM2n were never digitized and I’m not sure that this is one, but it seems right.

October Sunset in Mesilla Park, New Mexico.

The first electronic camera I ever used was a Canon Powershot A75 and it opened up a new world for me. I much later got a Canon Powershot SX70HS, which I still have and use occasionally. It is the lightest bridge camera and takes great photos, but you have to charge the battery separately, where all of the Nikon bridge cameras will charge while you are connected to the computer.

Mesilla Plaza, New Mexico, the day before Christmas in 2005. Canon Powershot A75

But this is getting ahead of myself. After a while I decided to buy up to a Panasonic DMC-FZ28. It was a wise choice.

Storm clouds over the Organ Mountains, New Mexico. Panasonic DMC-FZ28.

Shadow in the snow, Mesilla Park, New Mexico. Panasonic DMC-FZ28.

Sacred Datura, Mesilla Park, New Mexico. Panasonic DMC-FZ28.

Blacktip Shark, Albuquerque Aquarium, New Mexico. Panasonic DMC-FZ28.

I used this for several years with fine results, but eventually replaced it with a Fujifilm FinePix HS30EXR and then a Fujifilm Finepix S9400. Also good cameras, but eventually my liking for Nikons won out, especially after using the university’s Nikon E995 to document my research and make photos for teaching, and I bought three in a row, a Nikon Coolpix B700, the Nikon Coolpix P950 and the Nikon Coolpix P1000. I still have all but the P950 which I gave away over five years ago. Of these the P950 was probably the best. I never had any trouble with it. the other two are very good, but I had to have both repaired and the P1000 is just too heavy (one reason, along with price, that I never got a professional DSLR.) All told I probably spent probably close to six thousand dollars or a little more on cameras over my lifetime, but getting into professional DSLRs is a real richman’s game. Buying the camera body for $1500-4000 and then a telephoto lens for nearly the same or more at one time is quite beyond me. But for my purposes the bridge cameras served me well.

American Coot, El Paso, Texas. Fujifilm FinePix HS30EXR.

Great-horned Owl, Mesilla, New Mexico. Fujifilm FinePix S9400.

Avocet, Black-necked Stilts and female Shovelers , El Paso, Texas. Fujifilm FinePix S9400.

White-crowned Sparrow, Edmonds, Washington. Fujifilm FinePix S9400.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, Mesilla Bosque State Park, New Mexico.Fujifilm FinePix S9400W. A very good reason for having a telephoto lens!

Mojave Rattlesnake, Mouth of Pinery Canyon, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona. Fujifilm FinePix S9400W.

Crescent Moon over Edmonds, Washington. Hand held with Canon PowerShot SX70HS.

Ferry dock and Olympic Mountains, Edmonds, Washington. Nikon Coolpix P1000.

Glowing Sea Anemone, Seattle Aquarium, Nikon Coolpix B700.

Sun over Edmonds, Washington through forest fire smoke, Nikon Coolpix B700.

Washington Pass, North Cascades, Washington. Nikon Coolpix B700.

California Tortoise Shell, Edmonds Marsh, Washington. Nikon Coolpix B700.

I also bought a OMAX trinocular microscope, with an OMAX camera, for use in photographing microorganisms, a side interest of mine.

Coscinodiscus, La Vernede, France. OMAX microscope camera.

However, I found out that I could take some pretty nice general and closeup photos with an iPhone! It is not good for bird photography unless you pick up a telephoto lens, but they are pretty cheap.

Sunset, Puget Sound with a iPhone camera.

Mackerel Sky, Puget Sound, Washington. iPhone camera.

All photos are by me as usual.

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