Taken about 1958 by my father at Westover AFB in Massachusetts. Notice the perfect arm positioning to steady the camera!
First, a little history. I have a picture of myself standing in front of an aircraft (image at left) when I was eight years old and in my hand I had a little Brownie camera. Ever since I was that age, I have been interested in photography. I went into the military in the 1970s and had access to a great photography darkroom almost all to myself. I got my first professional camera - a Minolta - and I went out with the idea that I was going to take pictures of every aircraft in the Air Force inventory. When I moved to the San Antonio Texas area, that hobby of having a Minolta camera and working in a darkroom turned into a full-time portrait studio called Double Exposures (now called David Warner Studio).
For many years I did weddings, portraits and photojournalism in a six county area of South Texas. In the 1980’s, I was transferred to Biloxi Mississippi and didn’t do much photography while I was there. However, I kept up with the technology and the changes that were happening in the world of photography.
I had seen my first digital camera in either the late 1970’s or early 1980’s at a trade show. It was an RCA camera. When I saw that first digital camera, I was convinced that the world of photography was going to be changed forever as soon as it came out. It took a lot longer than I expected but the revolution hit in the 1990s.
By that time, I had acquired a large collection of Minolta equipment and lenses and I kept waiting for Minolta to come out with a digital camera. I finally decided that I had waited long enough because nothing had shown up, so I went into a camera store in Austin Texas; went to the sales rep I had been dealing with for many years and asked him which camera should I switch to?
All he said was “wait here just a minute.” He returned with a photograph of sports photographers on the sideline of an NFL football game. He asked me “what color are the lenses that most of the photographers have on the sideline?” Well, I looked at the photograph and the majority of the lenses were white in color. He said “who makes white lenses?” I didn’t know and I told him so. He replied “Canon makes those lenses and cameras.”
Well, that convinced me to take a look at Canon equipment for the first time. I bought two 10 D’s and some lenses. From that point on, I was hooked on Canon cameras and digital photography in general. Not that I still don’t shoot some film - I have a Mamiya 645 system and an Arca Swiss 4×5 camera. But my real love is the Canon system that I now own.
One of the things I had noticed over the last few years, was a real lack of a Canon community - one where you could get conversations, tips, video tutorials and all of the things that you find in the Nikon world, but specifically targeted at the Canon community. I decided that it was time to get one started. So, here we are with LensFlare35 and the idea to put as much Canon camera information as possible in one location. Interesting interviews with Canon professional photographers, their tips, tricks and highlights from the latest equipment that they use, and accessories that work with Canon digital cameras.
Hopefully, you’ll enjoy what we’re trying to do here and you will participate in the experience. We are open to suggestions and comments and look forward to your feedback. So, let’s get started with the journey.
To listen to the full podcast interview, click on the player’s forward arrow below. You can also play the Podcast in a popup window, download it OR subscribe to it via iTunes. We created a special video of David’s images with his explanation of each that opens in a popup window, just click, watch and listen.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:28 — 2.5MB)
