There was a question not long ago about the first camera, etc... I was just a youngster, shoveling snow for neighbors, when I had enough money to purchase my first camera (I think it was 39 cents!). I then later graduated to a Kodak 126 instamatic, which I later gave to my grandmother. The next was the Kodak 110 Instamatic which was a good pocket sized camera. One of my colleagues in the mid 1970's introduced me to the Canon AT-1. The camera peaked my ambition into the realm of photography as art. I became enthralled with photography. Needless to say, over the years, with a wife and three kids, my love of photography did not suffer, but my activity in it did. I recently retired and am looking to be able to express my love of photography. On a cold, but sunny, day, I found a couple of books that inspired me in the 1970's in my love of photography--"The Joy of Photography" and "More Joy of Photography".

I was wondering how many of my fellow UHH followers were also inspired by these books from Eastman Kodak...

Beautiful!

While recognizing the disaster of the fire, the beauty of the moon. An incredible photo with the moon rising above the destruction. A very good composition!

Actually, I don't think you posted enough. I love to look at the faces and the hope within them!

I've had trouble both with cards and images on the hard drive -- losing images on both media owing to neglect and viral issues. I'm just wondering, with the cost of media these days if it might be a solution to just buy new cards in order to archive the images on the old rather than reformatting. This may work until the media changes again (thinking old floppy disks).

Well, maybe, I should be more explicit... The broad "strokes" of the sky (which I love) do not seem to go with the apparent detail in the foreground.

Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't download, and the downloaded looks much better, but while I like #3 as a photo, I still like what the software enables us (well not me yet) to transform these photos. I certainly love #3, we were out West this summer and none of mine came this close, but I still love the artistic expression allowed by the software (PP) to transform these images into more than just "photos". It just seems to me that #1 could use, well maybe, just a little more work on the foreground, which I would enjoy viewing, I'm sure you could teach me a great deal on the process, which I would love. But, alas, that is only my personal opinion. We went through Monument Valley and the Canyonlands of Utah this past June, but we were on a schedule and I wasn't permitted to take too much time for the photography.

What a refreshing change of scenery! All very nice and reflective of the diversity of photography.

Three renditions of the same photo in Monument Valley.
Which do you prefer?

I really like most of all #1, but what I don't like is the detail in the foreground. It seems like you started on a good interpretation of the photo, but then quit before you were done. All three are nice in their own interpretation, but I would like to see #1 with a little more of the foreground done in line with the rest of the photo. In #2 the foreground is a little too much overdone. But, certainly, #3 is a beautiful photo on its own.

It's been over 30 years since we visited Amsterdam--back in the days of film cameras. The photos I liked the best were all taken at night. The buildings along the canals were all lit up. Then, there was the Leidesplein which left me with some nice photos, with the lights and the people enjoying a dry evening.

The little Nikon Coolpix would have be good through my visit through Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. I picked up a battery and charger along the way in Grand Junction, CO as had been suggested. If I had been more photo centric as I had hoped this would have been great. But alas, my wife had dragged me off in the Canyonlands of Utah more that my desire to shoot, I will post a few pictures, but none came out as spectacular as if I were given the time and circumstances. For the most part there were snapshots and remembrances of our trip. Some day in the not too distance future things will change.

On the other hand... I have been exposed to the UHH and been able to glean memorable tips and ways to make better pictures, thank you all... Hoping that I might share them in the future with you. Digital photography is definitely different from the old film style.

I am truly sorry for your loss... but, I too had the same issue. I backed up photo's on the attached hard drive, but it crashed. I was fortunate that the son of a close friend was able to recover those files, along with many other files from the "crashed" disk. Unfortunately, later, I was attacked by a "Krypto" virus which not only attacked my computers main drive, but also the attached auxiliary drives. I hate to ask him again to recover the files, but they are still there. In other words, perhaps, a crashed drive is better than a trashed drive. Good luck with their recovery. I should also add—perhaps a good reason to backup to a cloud drive...

I am truly sorry for your loss... but, I too had the same issue. I backed up photo's on the attached hard drive, but it crashed. I was fortunate that the son of a close friend was able to recover those files, along with many other files from the "crashed" disk. Unfortunately, later, I was attacked by a "Krypto" virus which not only attacked my computers main drive, but also the attached auxiliary drives. I hate to ask him again to recover the files, but they are still there. In other words, perhaps, a crashed drive is better than a trashed drive. Good luck with their recovery.

Beautiful shots, I have tried doing some infrared, but it's been guess work. How is the conversion made?

A couple of things to respond to. First, earlier there was a post about trolls on this site. I don't know if I would be considered a troll, I don't contribute much, if at all, but I've asked for some advice. I look at this site—gratefully—as a learning tool. One, where those who have experience, help those who want to develop their talents. Between reading the technical posts and viewing (and enjoying) the pictures posted, I get an idea of what I like and the direction I want my photography to develop. There certainly is nothing wrong with that.

Secondly, I've done a fair amount of photography over the past 50 years, while starting out on Kodak 126 & 110 Instamatics as a youngster who bought these cameras from money earned shoveling snow from sidewalks and cutting grass in the summer, later—most of it on a Canon AT-1 manual SLR. I have won a few photo contests with the rare photos I was able to compose on that camera that were worthy. Later, when I married, I bought my wife a Canon AE-1 because she didn't have the experience with an SLR but it still allowed me to use it in the manual mode to be more creative—and we could shoot color in one and black & white in the other—it served us well. When digital cameras started becoming the norm, I graduated to Canon PowerShots G1 & G5, an expensive jump for point and shoot, but was able to do well with these because of their simplicity. I still used my film SLR's but it became more expensive and harder to find places to develop the film. And it was not the same for shooting with an SLR. When I finally was able to purchase a Canon 60D dSLR a couple of years ago, I was delighted. But, alas, I am not retired and have many evening commitments in addition to my day job. Needless to say, the 60D is a whole lot more complicated, with so much ability to monitor and manipulate the settings. I needed to learn the simple basics of the camera before even contemplating getting creative with it. So on our recent trip out west to the Canyonlands of Utah, relied on the "auto" to simply "point and shoot" in auto-mode. I hope there is nothing wrong with that because I needed to learn what to do when the wrong button was pushed in error and how to recover. Because of postings on this site, I have learned some things I would have liked to try, like HDR shooting in Zion National Park. I am looking forward to using a lot of the techniques learned on this site as I begin to use my camera more.

That being said, I do agree, somewhat, with the sentiments expressed. I do acknowledge my limitations, but seeing people carrying $5,000 camera set-ups over the past two weeks, and in the final analysis watching them with their telephones on selfie-sticks being used more, I shake my head in wonderment.