Fifty Years to Stardom

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It was fifty years ago this summer that my dad gave this young army lieutenant $100 to buy my first camera at the PX in Baden Baden, Germany. I was serving my Quartermaster Corp tour of duty in Worms, about an hour north east. It was the start of my passion for photography - actually, I had a twinge of the passion growing up watching Love that Bob, a tv sitcom about the fun life of Bob Comings, studio photographer with a large format camera… often photographing glamorous models.

My passion for photography grows and yet it took fifty years to take my first images of the stars.

Barrett’s Cove 2, Canon 5D Mark IV 45mm T/S 10 sec f2.8 ISO 6400



Barrett’s Cove 1, Canon 5D Mark IV 45mm T/S 10 sec f2.8 ISO 6400

I owe the notice of loving looking up to my brother Richard, recognizing before I did, that a lot of my favorite images included the horizon as a dominant center of interest.

I am honored that Richard invited me to show sky images for his third book of poems - Smell the Roses, feel the soil/ reach the sky. I will never forget his prodding me to dig deeper and reflect like in a memoir with my image captions. My image reflecting is honed with the process begot by Smell the Roses.. I am excited to see the book in print about the time of Richard’s year mark of passing and my 73 birthday - August 8th - Watch for it’s release - it will be available from Amazon, FriesenPress and me.

The stars have not been an attraction for me - the lighting (lack thereof) has been a turnoff, and late at night, in out of the way places, have been a factor. But oh, what a sight to capture. Because of the required long exposure the camera captures the stars better than our eyes can see - it blows my mind. I am light-years from capturing the image to print large that I envision. I will be working toward an image to print with help from night photography experts Jim Nicholson and Shannon Kalahan.

Looking up - I love it!