I’ve had a passion for photography since childhood. I remember my first positive camera experience was during an elementary school field trip to a farm. I had my cheap little plastic camera filled with 126 film. At one point, I saw a mother horse with her foal standing next to her in the classic horse pose. I excitedly framed and took the picture. I couldn’t wait to get the prints back. When I finally had the photo in hand, I was sorely disappointed to discover that while my viewfinder had a clear view of the animals, the lens the film used to see the world was smack dab behind a part of the wire fence. My classic picture had a big line through the middle of it, but I was hooked just the same.

In my early teens, I found an old 35mm camera while cleaning out my grandmother’s house. It was a completely mechanical rangefinder camera with no flash or light meter, but I was eager to start experimenting. In those days, the boxes that 35mm film came in included some exposure guidelines printed on the inside. So, using those guidelines, I started taking pictures, recording the exposure settings for each photo so I could match them up with the print and could fine tune my exposure guesses. I took quite a few nice pictures with that camera, including one of Cinderella Castle at Disney World that hung on my bedroom wall for years.

When I got my first summer job at age 16, the first thing I bought with my newly earned money was a Minolta XG7 SLR and flash. Automatic cameras were just starting to appear on the market, and the XG7 was an early aperture-priority model. That camera saw me through high school (where I was the yearbook photography editor), college (where I won an on-campus photography contest), and the births of my first three kids.

When digital point-and-shoot cameras started becoming affordable, I jumped at the chance to go digital, so bought an Olympus D460 in 2001, just in time for the birth of my fourth child. I actually had both cameras in the hospital with me because I was scared to death I’d do something stupid and lose all my digital photos.

I didn’t miss the expense of film and processing, nor the restriction to carefully pick and choose what I spent exposures on, but I did miss the features, power, and flexibility of an SLR. I kept an eye on the market, but with four young kids, spending a four figure amount on a camera just wasn’t in the cards.

Last summer, I began noticing how much the price of entry-level DSLR cameras had dropped. I fixed my sights on the $450 Nikon D40 and began scraping together the cash to buy one. An unexpected Christmas bonus came along, and I went straight to the camera store to finally get my digital SLR. I was able to move up to the D80, got a free zoom lens in the deal, and was in heaven.

So for the past four months, I’ve been rediscovering creative photography and have been living on Flickr and Twitter, looking at all kinds of photos and listening to lots of podcasts. I’m planning to add a photo gallery here on the blog shortly, but you can also see my stuff over on Flickr. I still have a lot to learn, but I’m loving it.