When I was a junior in High School my very first job was working at a photo lab in Boise, Idaho. I was hired as the janitor and became fascinated by photography and the printing and developing process. The owner took me under his wing and I quickly moved up the ladder to the point of managing a lab (several years later...) and shooting portraits, youth sports, and event work. I moved to Southern California for a short time and worked at a custom wholesale lab where I developed photos for celebrities like Neil Diamond, Tom Selleck and Jack Nicholson.  In the early 1990's when digital cameras came on the scene I saw the end of the film days coming and I quit to join a electronics manufacturing company. I couldn't afford to replace the camera gear that was available to me at the studio so I pretty much quit photography entirely.

 

Fast forward ~10 years and my son is playing his first season of t-ball. A friend from work lets me borrow his professional digital camera and I was hooked (again)! That led to a sizable purchase of camera gear for both sports/action and portrait work and a renewed enthusiasm for the art of photography.