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I started running about taking pictures of the world before digital photography was even something to consider as a hopeful “professional” photographer. I started with film! I bought my first camera back in 1996. Those pictures are long gone. The ones that I remember most and loved to take are still hanging in my parents house. Out at college I hiked back to the railroad tracks. I waited for the trains to come, got as close as I dared, and took pretty amazing pictures while these powerful metal beast roared by. You see, my dad LOVES trains, and I wanted to get photos for him as a gift. My parents hold the only remenants of those early works of mine.

You couldn’t be as carefree with film as you can with digital. For film you had 24 or 36 shots per roll and then you had to pay to get it developed. Digital was truly freeing. You can take as many pictures as your memory card can hold, and if you don’t like a shot you just delete it. With film you crossed your fingers waiting to get the developed pictures back and hoped that they turned out as good as you saw in your mind. Now I head out, 26 years later, with digital cameras. I take pictures and edit them with controls I never could dream of back then.

Below is some of those early film photography that I had long ago put to digital files.

Back in, I believe, the winter of 2000, Hatteras Island got hit with a snowstorm that was far outside of the flurries we normally got. In my front yard were snowdrifts creeping up to my hips and the sound froze over. Here are a few pictures from that wintery event.