I have had an interest in photography as far back as I can remember. I remember being on family vacations with my little camera, taking extra time to compose the picture the way I wanted it to be. It became a more serious hobby when I began to be interested in astronomy. I was looking through various astronomy books and magazines and became increasingly impressed with the pictures. Most of the pictures were taken using equipment that was beyond my experience level at the time. But I became attracted to the pictures that seemed to be taken by rather simple equipment: a camera on a tripod. I started to research what kind of camera that I would need to buy to take these kinds of pictures. I learned that my little automatic camera would not work for this; instead, I needed to buy one that could allow me to change lenses, as well as allowing me to control the finer details of the pictures. After taking a few photos of the night sky— and being rather satisfied with them— I began to learn more about photography in general. I had spent the money on a nice camera— why not learn how to use it to its maximum potential?

     I was fortunate to have purchased a camera that has no automatic functions: everything is controlled by the photographer. Although I have since bought a more advanced camera—one that has both automatic and manual controls— I still prefer to control the aspects of my pictures.

~Mark Egan