Today when I photograph my family during our Thanksgiving day feast and celebration I will be using a Canon EOS R5, the best camera I've ever owned. I will be able to take all the images I want because of the 64 Gigabyte SanDisk card that I will be using. But I want to take a moment and reflect on a couple of tools of the trade that changed my life. One was my first professional 35mm film camera, a Topcon Super D. It was the first single lens reflex camera with through the lens metering. I shot with that camera from about 1968 until I traded it for the second camera you see, the Nikon F2, around 1974 or so. The cameras in the photographs are not the originals I owned, but I have been buying cameras that I used way back then off of Ebay. Both of these were purchased from Japanese camera dealers, the Nikon just arriving yesterday. Unlike the digital cameras of today they were very simple to operate and because I used them for so long they became an extension of me. I could concentrate on the subject and not worry so much about the camera operation. I didn't shoot that long with the Nikon because it was stolen from me along with the lenses and whatever else was in the bag. I was able to replace the camera with a later model, but I didn't like it as much. Those two original cameras just seemed to be magic in my hands. They inspired my creativity and drew me further into the art of photography. I was processing my own film, even buying it in 100 foot rolls and loading it into my own canisters for use in the camera. There was no auto-focus, just a split image focusing aid. I had a motor drive for the Nikon that enabled me to shoot at 4 frames per second, slow by today's standards but any faster and I'd have been changing film every two seconds! The exposure was set manually and you had to wait until the film was developed to see your images. But the cameras were inexpensive and they lasted you a long time - assuming they weren't stolen. I paid about $150 for the Topcon. I can't remember what I paid for the Nikon, but it wasn't that much more. Now I'm shooting with a $4,000 camera and the lens I'm using today runs $2,700. It shoots up to 20 frames per second, auto focuses on people's eyes, even animal eyes. But technology changes and I'm guessing by the end of 2022 I will be shooting with a new camera (Digital photography is much more expensive than film.) But life is good. My photography has never been better. I'm just grateful for those original cameras that sent me on a path to where I am now. They opened up the world to me and for that I give thanks.

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