How I Came to Love Shooting Things

I lived my first 50 years rarely photographing anything. Not that this stopped me from acquiring cameras. The gift of a Brownie as a young girl. A Minolta 35mm that I bought when I thought I might get serious. An Apple QuickTake 200, my first digital model (never could resist a new Apple product). A Pentax point-and-shoot to replace the unused Minolta. Even a Leica Rangefinder I inherited from my Dad. 

There was only one problem:  an underlying belief, buried below my conscious awareness. A belief that it was more important to have an experience than to photograph one, the one I would be missing because I would instead be fiddling with camera settings.

Intending to take exposures, or so I told myself, I bought camera bodies. I bought lenses. I just didn't use them.  

It was November 2006 before I came to understand I could appreciate an experience while I was also photographing it. I was in Italy. I had borrowed my husband’s point-and-shoot camera, thinking it would likely languish in my carry-on bag the entire trip.

This viewpoint shifted the moment I took my first image. Maybe it was the camera. Maybe it was the location. OK, it was me. Suddenly, I was captivated by the beauty of nature, architecture and history I could capture through the lens. I surprised myself by taking 2,500 photographs on that month-long trip.

Today, I take a camera everywhere. The difference now? I actually use it. I even shoot mainly in manual mode and entirely RAW images. And, yes, no one could be more surprised about this than I am.

​Kathy Bridges