Mark's photographic life

I'm originally from Circleville, Ohio, but after about age 17 things get complicated geographically speaking. As for my professional life I'm something of a jack-of-all-trades (and certainly master of none) and most of what pays my bills comes, so far, not from photography but from various business and IT consulting projects. I've lived in the US, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, and I travel extensively whenever I can get away from my desk job.

I have been interested in photography as long as I can remember. I used to have a theory that photographs were already inside the little film canisters, and when you sent them off to be developed all the store did was take them out, unfold them, and iron out the creases. I also thought that liquid plant food squirted into my ear would make my brain grow too. Maybe this explains something?

I've gone through countless cameras including an old 110, a disc, several 35mm point-and-shoots, underwater disposables, two manual-focus Minolta SLRs, a Yashica medium-format camera, some Polaroids, and a couple of digital point-and-shoots. I even had one camera mounted in the nose of a model rocket (combining two hobbies in one!) but that met its bitter end crashing into a concrete parking lot. I currently spend all my money on Canon digital SLRs.

I enjoyed learning the basic techniques behind photography back in high school, but I was always frustrated by the overwhelming complexity and the difficulty in practicing with film. For example, I found I could bracket exposures, but even if I remembered to make notes about which frames had which exposure settings, the commercial lab would just even them all out anyhow. Digital has been an incredible boon, making the learning and experimenting infinitely easier, immediate, and affordable. And anyhow, I think I'm more at home behind a computer with Photoshop than in a darkroom with Granddad's old out-of-alignment enlarger. I do, however, miss the smell of stopbath in the morning.

These days I use the following equipment:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II and older digital SLRs: from what I can tell Canon makes the best lenses, and the bodies aren't bad either.
• Canon SD880IS compact camera with underwater housing.
• Arca Swiss "Model B" 4x5 view camera, 210mm Schneider-Kreutznach lens.
• Yashica "Model A" medium format TLR: I found Dad's old camera (from the mid 1950's) while moving house. It has been fun re-learning film photography.
• Various Canon L series lenses and other Canon accessories, speedlites.
• Lexar Professional Compact Flash cards, Sandisk SD cards
• B+W & Heliopan filters
• Gitzo and Manfrotto mono-/tripods, Manfrotto quick release plates
• Alienbees strobes, softbox, umbrella, stands
• Crumpler and Lowepro bags: first bag was a Lowepro because I didn't know any better. Crumpler, however, makes awesome photography bags. There are several things I would change, and in fact I've taken mine to a tailor to have some modifications made, but even new these bags beat the others hands-down.