We all start our careers somewhere. I was 10 years old when I took my first picture with my grandfather's old Brownie Camera. It took the kind of film that rolled up in paper, and after all the pictures were taken, you would take it to the nearest camera store for processing. Suddenly, you would see the world as you saw it when you clicked the shutter. Barns with hay stacks, grandma's apple pie, fireworks on the 4th of July-- what a delight to see the results!

In college, I landed my first job in a photomat in my hometown. I packed orders and accepted jobs in for processing. Soon I was color correcting and preparing beautiful pictures. This was fun work, and I quickly realized I could earn a living by doing it.

After graduating from college with a Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in Photography, I landed a full-time position in a custom photo lab printing color photos. I worked there for 25 years. I still took pictures with my Nikon SLR camera, but after I realized that the digital revolution would eventually impact my world, I learned Photoshop and bought my first digital camera.

Today I create digital pictures for a text book publisher. Photography has changed since I first picked up my grandfather's Brownie camera, but my eye still sees the beauty of those first images that I captured back when I was 10.