Back in the late seventies when I dragged my family off to Iqaluit on Baffin Island to begin my teaching career I bought my first SLR camera and it served me well but I eventually lost interest in photography and brought it out only rarely, like when my son and I took our yearly canoe trips into Algonquin Park.
In 2002 I bought a digital camera as a retirement gift to myself which I used to document my year and a half in Bancroft while I pursued my back-to-nature lifestyle. That camera died a couple of years later so I bought yet another point and shoot but then, shortly afterwards, I started getting more serious about photography and took the plunge buying a digital SLR. By this time my hands were pretty much frozen into a half fist with perhaps 10% of the movement remaining. I sometimes joke that I've taken to intentionally dropping everything on the floor since it's a given that I will drop half the stuff I pick up anyway. By intentionally dropping things, there are fewer surprises and at least I will have some control over where and how hard the objects hit the floor. And so, when researching DSLR's my first consideration became size and weight, the smaller and lighter the better. Didn't want to be dropping my $1000+ toy now did I?
The result was that I bought a Canon Digital Rebel, the smallest and lightest digital SLR out there. Later on I also purchased the smallest lightest lens available. There are times when I lust after bigger more powerful cameras, especially when I see my friends using theirs but then I remind myself that I have to be practical and stay with something that I can actually use. And of course my present camera really is just fine - you can judge for yourself by checking out my photoblog - and I'm quite happy with the results.
The biggest problem I have now is that my season for photography is too short. When temperatures begin to drop to the mid teens Raynaud's gets in the way 'cause its pretty much impossible to take photographs with these big puffy mitts I have to wear. Guess I'll have to start doing more indoor stuff even though it's the outdoors I really thrive on.
Limitations aside, photography has provided me with endless hours of pleasure. And then there's the Photoshop end of it which I enjoy as much as, if not more than, the actual taking of pictures. When I'm releasing the shutter or testing my creative limitations in the digital dark room, I forget everything else and life is good. Doesn't get much better than that.
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