I've been visiting the site for a couple of months and officially joined this morning so I guess it's time to introduce myself.
I got into photography when digital cameras made their way on to the scene. I was working for a large tropical fish importer in Los Angeles and wanted to be able to record some of the rarities that we received from time to time. The cameras didn't capture all that well back then so the pictures weren't very good but I'm really glad I did what I did. I've been able to sell quite a few of those shots just because the fish pictured were rare and one of my shots turned out to be the only one ever taken of a live specimen of that particular species. It's been published in a German book on catfish. I have a few other fish shots in books here and there.
About 5 years ago I left the fish business so my wife could pursue her lifelong dream of owning a horse facility. We now live in rural Tennessee which was the best decision we ever made. I don't miss the city life at all! Here's a link to our business site.
The benefit of selling some of those old fish shots was that I was able to use the money to buy my first DSLR. I was really interested in shooting bugs so my first lens purchase was a 100mm macro lens. I soon realized that bugs wern't going to be around all year long so my winter attention went to birds which meant I needed a telephoto lens. And of course I live in the country so there's definitely a need for a wide angle. And when I'm out and about I need a more general purpose lens. And, and, and... There's always something more I NEED! It never ends.
The wonderful thing about living on a farm is that I'm able to take 20 or 30 minutes here and there away from work to wander around and look for flora and fauna to photograph. I really don't go on many photography excursions away from home but that's OK. There are plenty of wonderful things here on the farm.
My main passion now is butterflies. This started a few years ago when I wanted to know what species I was shooting. I found the Butterflies and Moths of North America site which helped a lot with the ID's. They keep records of which species have been spotted in every county in the U.S. and I saw that my home county was underrepresented. This started me on my quest to fix that problem. I'm up to 77 species of butterflies so far. It's an obsession to find more!
BPN is a wonderful resource. I've dealt with other sites and Usenet groups and at those places you either get no response at all or you get a "Great shot" type response. I'm doing this as a hobby and while a "Great shot" response is nice for my ego, I'm always looking to improve so I asked around to find out where I could go to get constructive criticism and BPN was recommended to me.
Hey, y'all!
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