Picture of a photographer – Tim Hurst

As you will see someplace in this month’s SOKY… depending on where Twila and Krystal decide to drop it in… I got out in the January snow with my camera and walked around the neighborhood shooting some pictures. Hopefully you will find them as pretty as I did. Not because of my great skill as a photographer but because of God’s amazing gift of a beautiful world. 

I started shooting pictures in my teens while in high school with the cheap little film cameras you could buy at most drug stores… that was before the big box stores came to Bowling Green. Later I purchased a “real” camera from a friend that my girlfriend and I often babysat for… a 35mm Yashica Electro 35. I just looked on eBay and that camera is now considered a “vintage collectable” which makes it one better than me. I’m definitely vintage but hardly collectable! 

For years Jack in the camera shop at CDS #7 on the ByPass was my source for cameras, film, film processing and later my own film processing and picture printing equipment. If I had to pick one person who probably helped me most to later become a photographer, it was Jack, and I hope I thanked him then because I’m sure it is way too late now. 

I have loved photography for over 50 years now and I believe I have always made enough money with my cameras to pay for them. Thank God I have a loving wife in Twila who has been patient with my passion for the art and with my desire to always have the latest Nikon “toy!” 

I won’t bore you… well, more than I already have… with any more of my photography history. What all this has been leading up to is… if you are like us… you now shoot pictures almost every day with your phone. We are so blessed… or maybe cursed… to have a camera in our pockets all the time. Twila and I are lucky enough to own a couple of businesses that require us to keep high-quality printers handy, allowing us to make and frame prints about any time we want. We also have two or three of those fancy picture frame things that you can upload your pictures to and have a slide show playing all the time. 

There are few things better to spark a memory than a picture. But if you let those pictures get away from you, I can promise you as the years pass the memories dim. Grab a small hard drive or set up a cloud account and save the best of your pictures. Print one out every now and then and stick it on the fridge, if nothing else. Let the wonderful new photography technology help keep those memories sharp because, I can tell you… a life of great memories is a blessing worth hanging on to.