I’m a regular shooter like you. Not sponsored, not an “Influencer” just a photographer who shoots a little bit of everything, buys new gear, sells old gear, hates video, and has a little bit of camera-geek in him.

When I was working on my undergrad degree (BA in Art/Visual Communications from Salisbury University), I needed two Art electives. I chose Ceramics and Photography. This could just as easily be a blog on throwing pots and firing glazes. Thank God for all of us it isn’t. I bought my first camera, a Mamiya NC1000 35mm film camera, with a small student loan (which I paid back!).

I carried that camera around with me everywhere when I started. So much so that my employer, an electronics company where I worked part time as a drafter, asked if I could take a few pictures. I became an actual photographer that day when they handed me the company’s Nikon F2 and the keys to the darkroom. Since then I’ve worked for myself, at ad agencies, for ad agencies, state agencies, restaurant companies, and even a regional lifestyle magazine. These days I manage the graphic design curriculum at a state college, teaching most of the classes, and offering a couple of evening photography classes as well. I’m one of those lucky people who loves his work.

I travel as much as possible, but that’s once or twice a year, we’re not exactly Rockefellers. Like most of you my wife and I love our kids, our pets, time with friends, and a good bottle of wine, not necessarily in that order.

Oh, and I love my cameras, some more than others.

The Beatles wrote, “There are cameras I'll remember, all my life though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain…”.

Wait, was it “cameras”? Maybe not. Should have been.

Steven R. Hicks, Ed.D.