I started taking photos as a child with a Brownie box camera. Don't know what happened to it! When I was sent to Vietnam in 1964 by the Air Force, I purchased my first low cost Petri 35mm camera. I took slides of Vietnam and my family, which I managed to save and scanned them into my computer. That camera went bad in the 1970's and Petri went out of business around 1977. I couldn't get it repaired. I could not afford another camera until few years ago when I purchased my Nikon D3100 in May of 2011. It took awhile to get used to a digital camera. Now I am enjoying photography again. When I read about BetterPhoto.com in one of Jim's books I went online to see what it was all about. I signed up in July of 2014 and this has added so much more enjoyment to my photography. All the support from other photographers has been really great. Thank you Jim and all the photographers and team of BetterPhoto.com!! We sold our Alpaca farm in New Jersey and moved to Florida in July 2017 and now I am enjoying my photography full time! Florida is a great place to do it, with all the wild life here!