My name is Jim Pickrell. I am a mid-westerner, and live in west-central Indiana. I am 63 years young, and looking forward to more free time in the future as I reduce the demands from my career in health care.

I am entirely self taught in photography. I have read about photography over the last 30 years in books and magazines. I have attended several workshops over the last few years.

The immediate feedback digital provides today, coupled with photography web forums, is a very effective teaching mechanism. As a result, the web has become my primary instructor, and supplements my reading. I have found Amazon a very willing librarian, that will drop the latest publications about photography and photographers to my doorstep.

My father was an amateur photographer with a B&W darkroom when he was a teenager and I seem to have inherited the affliction from him.

I have been shooting images for almost 50 years, beginning with a 35mm Kodak Retinette A in high school. It was entirely manual - focus, aperture, shutter speed, film advance. Tri-X in D-76, in a daylight tank.... If you know what that is, you understand :)

My first SLR was a 500TL Mamiya-Sekor in college. I later used an Olympus OM-1, and even later, a Nikon FM3a.

I souped and printed B&W and Cibachrome positive color prints in my home darkroom in the late 1970s, as well as some Ektrachrome processing at home.

I shot a Canon F-1 35mm SLR underwater, while SCUBA diving, in the early 1980s.

By the 1990s I was back to a 35mm P&S, mostly for snapshots.

When digital image editing came of age in the late 1990s, I began to eagerly read and learn about it. The ability to have full control of image editing was thrilling to envision, and still is.

With the advent of the Canon 10D, I returned anew to photography as a serious student. I found there was a great deal I had to learn and re-learn to create my images in this new medium.

The 10D was quickly replaced with a 20D, and I recently received a new 40D. Canon is a great marketer (tongue in cheek!)

I joined dgrin.com in early January 2004 at the suggestion of Chris MacAskill (co-founder of smugmug and advrider - better know as Baldy) while posting on Advrider.com. After a few days I knew that I had a found a home on the Web for my photo interests. Dgrin continues to teach me every day as I read and post there as Pathfinder..

I host my images at www.pathfinder.smugmug.com, which has become my personal shoebox for images I have collected over the years, whether from film or digital originals.

Smugmug is a very important resource for me - it is my off site storage for all my finished photos - safe from fire, theft, flood, tornado, hard drive failure, etc. I can't imagine anyone thinking their photos are truly safe if they are only stored on their computer in their home.

I have an extensive collection of Canon gear, DSLRs, lenses (long, very long, wide, macro) flashes and remote triggers (Canon and other brands), tripods, studio lights, reflectors, etc.

I am not certain about my next purchase - I have my eye on a new Power Mac.

I have a very eclectic taste for different photographic themes.

I love:

• Large Landscapes:



• Small Landscapes:




• Macros:




• Studio Shots:



• Wildlife:




• Cars, Motorcycles, Airplanes and Other Stuff:




• From My Tri-X Days - Real Film Grain:

I have a special love for the mountain SouthWest where I try to travel every fall either on 2 wheels or 4.

I think I like the different skills required in different areas of photography. When I tire of one venue, a different one excites me anew.

I find myself drawn to good photographs published in a high quality book format. There, I can examine the images in quiet reflection, away from the noise of daily life. I just received a re-edition of John Szarkowski's "The Photgrapher's Eye" which was originally published in 1966.

I have a collection of books by HenriCartier Bresson, Walker Evans, David Muench, Mark Muench, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibowitz, WeeGee, Galen Rowell, John Shaw, Art Morris, and many others. I enjoy the images Michael Reichman creates a great deal also - They exhibit a certain spare, serene balance of color and composition that I find appealing.

I like to watch movies and videos, and examine the lighting and composition of the frames as they pass in front of my eye.

I find I need to develop a better eye + brain, since most good images are visualized first in the mind, and then captured by a camera. With a good image in mind, a simple camera may frequently be all that is needed for its capture.

A small Point and Shoot can capture lovely images if the light is friendly. Sometimes the light needs a little encouragement with flash.

I have been with Smugmug almost from the day I joined dgrin.com, back in early 2004. I enjoy the ability of friends and family to see my images in their own homes night or day, and see my latest renderings as soon as I upload them. The ability to link them to sites on the web is invaluable. The ability to obtain prints directly from the web is also great for my family members.

Since I am an amateur photographer, I am very fortunate and do not have the limitations and financial concerns of a business. I only have to satisfy my inner eye. If I was a commercial shooter, I would then have to satisfy my client’s needs in favor of my own.

Smugmug safely hosts my completed images so that they are stored safely, and immediately available to me and friends of mine whenever and where-ever they may be, even on different continents.

I have had major hard drive crashes with data loss in the past - Smugmug is my insurance policy that my images will not ever be lost. This is a critically important to me.

Go for it!! Grab the brass ring! (Aperture rings were made of brass, once upon a time!)