I'm new here (imagine that!), and while I've paid me dues, submitted a membership application and made a brief introductory statement at the last CMPG meeting at Chapelgate this past Wednesday evening, I thought I should provide a better introduction via this medium to a broader audience.

I've been taking pictures for about 45 years and while I've never been an expert at it, I've always loved it.  I started when my brother bought me a camera "kit" when I was in high school that contained a box camera of some sort, minimal developing hardware and chemicals, and with that, the great outdoors, and covered windows in the bathroom, I started taking and developing pictures.  My approach: what I would call the law of averages – if you take enough pictures, some of them are bound to come out decent on average (a pretty weak photographic philosophy).

So as time went on (in the film world) I advanced with Yashica, Pentax, Olympus (et al) cameras, and became so discouraged by the cost of film and time required to develop all these "average" pictures, over the years my interest waned and I eventually put the cameras up and found other areas that interested me.

My daughter was responsible for my renewed interest and that was augmented with digital capture and storage.  For 10-15 years or so I returned to photography in a Point and shoot perspective, and for that length of time I searched out smaller and smaller cameras to enable photography in more remote places and times.  At the same time I pursued larger and larger "formats" (pixel count).

Then something caused me to turn to quality rather than quantity (probably my daughter again), and started researching Nikon cameras (I had always wanted a Nikon back in the 70s, but never seemed to be in a position to acquire one – and by the way, this is exactly the same experience I have had with Martin guitars).

Anyway, it has been downhill from there and I have already owned 4 Nikons (still have 3 of them) and an assortment of Nikkor and other lenses (and I still have an old Pentax K1000 of my daughter's sitting around somewhere too if anyone is interested in it). And by the way, I still have a bit of that "law of averages" metality in my picture-taking approach, I have just happened to learn some more along the way to make the average a little higher. 

I enjoy shooting landscapes, wildlife, motorsports and anything else that I believe merits visual capture for posterity.

I'm glad I found a local club and hope I can share as much of my experience as I hope to gain from yours.

Tom