Let Me Introduce Myself....

This is my first entry into my new blog about photography. In fact this is my very first blog (though I did "blog" years ago before it was called "blogging"). I'll just start off today by explaining a bit about myself.

I first got into photography about 13 years ago. My brother had a Pentax P-30 (or something like that) and a few lenses. I used to borrow his camera quite a bit. I'd take it on vacations and to parks around town, shoot portraits for friends, shoot lightning in my front yard or from the roof of my house (but only when it was at a safe distance). I did the usual experiments (tyring B&W or slide film, play with lighting, multiple exposures, etc). My favorite part of photography, however, was photographing landscapes when we drove from Detroit to Seattle. That's the part that really got me hooked onto photography. At one point I had some really nice pictures and was contemplating selling prints at art fairs and stuff like that. Then about 6 to 8 years ago, other events in life caused me to gradually move away from photography (and then suddenly forget about it all together). I started to take interest again last year, and this year for the first time I bought my own camera.

My goal this time it to take the hobby I've had off an on for all these years and turn it into a (secondary) profession. At the present time, I'm doing a lot of traveling, taking pictures and building a collection of quality images. Within the next 6 months, I hope to be selling photographs at art fairs. Tonight, I start my very first photography class. It's an intro level class, so I might already be beyond the technical scope of the class, but my hope is to both meet other photographers and to have the assignments push me to shoot things I normally wouldn't bother to shoot. Maybe I'll develop more of a taste for shooting studio portraits or product shots. Who knows? The point is to just see where it takes me.

Not related to photography: I'm 29, married, 3 cats, no kids, 3 bedroom house, 2001 Blazer, 6 brothers and 1 sister, work as a programmer at a university, bachelors degree in computer science, play drums, video games, write/sell computer software and video games for fun and profit, enjoy board games, roller coasters, bowling, pool (billiards and swimming), mini golf, and often wonder just how long I can go on in one sentence. That just about sums it up.

I'll post my equipment list next. Heres a few links for examples of my photography:
My current digital photography
Film photography from years ago