Despite admonitions from Agent Listorama, I dug out my old Nikon FE-2 and tried to nurse it back to health. It has a sticky shutter, but I can't decide if it is an electronic thing or a mechanical thing. I flooded it with contact cleaner and the shutter started working, most of the time. I went and bought a roll of ASA 200 color film and headed down to Galveston to do some shooting.

I have not shot a prime lens in probably 20 years. Actually, since I last used this camera. It has a 50mm F/1.8 lens, which is actually a pretty fast lens compared to the zooms I normally use. That makes for interesting composition challenges as you all remember. I am sure my pbase friends had a 50 mm prime early on in their photo careers. So, I spent a lot of time moving position to get a reasonable composition. It was fun. The shutter failed five times during the outing. On the way back home I dropped the film off at the photo shop to get the negatives developed. As with so many things these days, they send it out somewhere. I have to figure where they send it.

I am sure all of you remember the basic photography class back at the academy. That Miss Swenson was a great instructor and model. That latter part might be classified, the model bit. I thought the joy of loading a tank and developing the film was PFM (pure magic). It got me to appreciate chemistry and perhaps helped to launch my career. I don't have any interest in setting up a darkroom. I would have no place to put it. But I can develop B&W film and scan it. I am getting real good at scanning film. The reason for all this is that I want to try something different with my photo endeavors. I go to the club meetings and watch the judging. The photos are all very good. So what can I do to differentiate my stuff from their stuff? That is my line of thinking. We will see what happens. It promises to be a ton of fun.

This is a SP taken back at the house after my Galveston sojourn. In a week I should get my negatives back and I will definitely post something from the adventure.