My View of the World

Larch Mountain Road, Multnomah County, OR (2019)

The age at which I recall first taking photographs was when I was about to turn twelve years. My dad, who had always been the family photographer when we were young, bought me my first camera in 1971—a Kodak Instamatic. Following that camera was a Polaroid and then another Instamatic. I took some fairly decent pictures (notice I didn't say "photographs"? 😉) with those starter cameras. My first decent camera was a Canon AE-1, which I bought in 1980. That camera was a beast with its 80-200mm zoom lens (almost 2 pounds!), making it impractical for my day-to-day life working with horses and then years later when I had my daughter. I missed out on way too many once-in-a-lifetime moments because of its unwieldiness and the expense of film and processing. It was 2008 when we acquired our first and only digital camera, an Olympus SP510UZ. I was finally able to take photographs whenever I wanted without limits! My first usage of cell phone cameras began with an LG Rumor in 2008 followed by two different BlackBerry devices. I have used iPhones exclusively since 2013 and know that they'll always be my only "camera."

To my knowledge, my photographs have been published in one book, one magazine, one calendar, one educational film, and used on countless company websites, national & state park websites, tourism websites, broadcast news websites, e-magazine websites, and both commercial and personal blogs. Most of my photographs are licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

After all of these years it still thrills my shutterbug heart when I see my photographs being used (as licensed & with credit to valeehill, of course) all over the Internet. 🥰

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1st Camera, 1st Roll of Film - Barker Reservoir, CO (1971)