Europe, 1980

(Eiffel tower at Night)

In June of 1980 I had just graduated from college, and had the summer free before I started law school. My parents were kind enough to agree that I didn't need to work that summer, giving me the chance to travel, with the understanding that I would pay for my own trip. I had never been away from North America. I decided to spend the summer travelling around Europe. I flew to England, then traveled through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and then back to England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland before flying home. I brought my Canon AE-1 camera and rolls of film.

(view of Florence from the Duomo)

It was an incredible, eye-opening trip. I learned enough in each language to find the youth hostel and buy bread, cheese, fruit, milk or ale. I met up with friends, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by chance. (A former girlfriend and I had a date to meet in England my first week, but she never showed up. Four weeks later we met on a subway platform in Paris, and I learned that her flight the month before had been delayed.) I made new acquaintances everywhere I went. I took long walks by myself, shooting photos everywhere. I set myself a budget of $15 per day, including the youth hostel and my food (but not including transport, which was mostly by rail pass).

(Gondoliers racing in Venice)

I must have shot 20 or more rolls of slide film (36 or 37 shots each); when I got home identified about 400 photos that I liked the best, and they became my "slide show," which no one but my doting parents and grandparents would ever see.

I dug some of these slides out recently when I acquired a new photo scanner that is equipped to scan slides. I found my old slide viewer, flipped through 100 of my slides, scanned a handful that I liked the best. I still liked a lot of the pictures. I was amazed to see the picture of the Eiffel Tower at night, taken with a guess of a long exposure on film, not knowing until the slide was developed 8 weeks later whether the shot would come out.

Some of my photography is the same as what I did with that great old film machine. I look through the viewfinder, and have a gut feel for what I am looking for. It makes a huge difference, though, to be able immediately to see the photo reduced to a captured image, and be able to shoot most shots again, from a different angle, at a different exposure, closer up or further away. Digital photography with a good camera gives me more control over the picture, more ability to show others what I am seeing. And the internet gives me the ability to show just a few pictures at a time to so many friends!

But I sure like some of those old pictures, taken when I was very young ...

(me, in Interlaken)