Mel_Snyder
New Member
…less great to discover that someone already pirated my name and email address from DPR, but hey, welcome to the internet.
At 80, shooting for publication since In was 16, I probably take pole position as the oldest new member. After shooting my first high school night football game with the school’s 4x5 Speed Graphic and Graflex strobe — as I was packing up my gear — I was approached by an out-of-breath similarly equipped photographer. He introduced himself as a photographer for the local 50,000-circulation daily. He’d tried to cover 2 games and missed my school’s — he asked if I would give him my film holders, and if the paper used any, they’d pay me. A trusting guy, I gave him the 6 or so (2 images/holder) I’d shot.
That was Friday night. Saturday morning, I got a phone call from the newspaper that I could pick up my negatives, film holders — and a check for $50 for the 2 images they’d used. When you are in the 9th grade, you think you have struck gold. Even my dad — an industrial photographer for Bethlehem Steel — was impressed.
After college, I struck gold again by landing a staff position with one of the biggest PR firms at the time, Burson-Marsteller. Soon I was both shooting photos and writing press releases — and traveling the world for client Texas Instruments. I’d bought myself a Topcon RE as a college graduation present, along with the cameras my dad passed on to me: a 1938 Leica IIIa, then a Mamiya C3 with the 180, 80 and 50mm lenses. I thought I’d buy a Canon DSLR when it was announced, only to discover that my collection of FD lenses for my Canon F1 and T90 were useless. So I switched to Nikon, first the D70, then the D300, then a D7000.
And then, on DPR, I read about a new mirrorless camera with an eye-level digital finder from Sony that could, with adapters, use my Leica M-mount lenses, my Canon FD lenses, and my Nikon AiS lenses. I rushed to B&H with my Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M. The salesman lent me an adapter, and I snapped my first Sony images in the store. I don’t remember what NEX it was — not the 7, the less expensive one — and I was hooked.
The photo was my daughter the morning she gave my my first grandchild — shot with the NEX and the 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M.
Then came the A7, the A7II, and the A7III. I eventually broke down and bought a Sony 35mm f2.8 lens for the A7, to shoot a family wedding.
DPR was a valued resource ever since I bought that first Sony. I’d met some great people on the forums there. Business travel let me meet some of them in person — Henry (“blue_skies”), Don Holder (sadly, passed — went sailing with him under the Golden Gate bridge), and more recently, Leif Olstrup (“olstrup”) and his now-departed wife in Copenhagen. I’m now, since mid-pandemic, mostly retired,
Not adding to my camera collection — I‘m a radio amateur, W3PYF — and I’ve “discovered“ the “Parks On The Air” activity that gets me out in forests and parks all around New England and down to my kids and grandkids in western NC.
Let’s see if the pirate Mel Snyder can match that!
At 80, shooting for publication since In was 16, I probably take pole position as the oldest new member. After shooting my first high school night football game with the school’s 4x5 Speed Graphic and Graflex strobe — as I was packing up my gear — I was approached by an out-of-breath similarly equipped photographer. He introduced himself as a photographer for the local 50,000-circulation daily. He’d tried to cover 2 games and missed my school’s — he asked if I would give him my film holders, and if the paper used any, they’d pay me. A trusting guy, I gave him the 6 or so (2 images/holder) I’d shot.
That was Friday night. Saturday morning, I got a phone call from the newspaper that I could pick up my negatives, film holders — and a check for $50 for the 2 images they’d used. When you are in the 9th grade, you think you have struck gold. Even my dad — an industrial photographer for Bethlehem Steel — was impressed.
After college, I struck gold again by landing a staff position with one of the biggest PR firms at the time, Burson-Marsteller. Soon I was both shooting photos and writing press releases — and traveling the world for client Texas Instruments. I’d bought myself a Topcon RE as a college graduation present, along with the cameras my dad passed on to me: a 1938 Leica IIIa, then a Mamiya C3 with the 180, 80 and 50mm lenses. I thought I’d buy a Canon DSLR when it was announced, only to discover that my collection of FD lenses for my Canon F1 and T90 were useless. So I switched to Nikon, first the D70, then the D300, then a D7000.
And then, on DPR, I read about a new mirrorless camera with an eye-level digital finder from Sony that could, with adapters, use my Leica M-mount lenses, my Canon FD lenses, and my Nikon AiS lenses. I rushed to B&H with my Leica 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M. The salesman lent me an adapter, and I snapped my first Sony images in the store. I don’t remember what NEX it was — not the 7, the less expensive one — and I was hooked.
The photo was my daughter the morning she gave my my first grandchild — shot with the NEX and the 35mm f1.4 Summilux-M.
Then came the A7, the A7II, and the A7III. I eventually broke down and bought a Sony 35mm f2.8 lens for the A7, to shoot a family wedding.
DPR was a valued resource ever since I bought that first Sony. I’d met some great people on the forums there. Business travel let me meet some of them in person — Henry (“blue_skies”), Don Holder (sadly, passed — went sailing with him under the Golden Gate bridge), and more recently, Leif Olstrup (“olstrup”) and his now-departed wife in Copenhagen. I’m now, since mid-pandemic, mostly retired,
Not adding to my camera collection — I‘m a radio amateur, W3PYF — and I’ve “discovered“ the “Parks On The Air” activity that gets me out in forests and parks all around New England and down to my kids and grandkids in western NC.
Let’s see if the pirate Mel Snyder can match that!
