(Note: please don't mistake me for Jim Richardson, the famous National Geographic photographer who also lives in Lindsborg.)

I started in photography back in the summer of 1972 with the purchase of my first SLR, a Russian-made Zenit-E with a 58mm f/2 Helios lens. I had a cousin who was also into photography and had a darkroom in his basement; he taught me how to develop black & white film and make prints. In my senior year in high school (1972-73) I was a photographer for both the student newspaper and the yearbook, which gave me experience in photographing individuals, groups, candids, and sports.

Photography was intensely fascinating to me. I subscribed to "Modern Photography" magazine and read each issue cover-to-cover the day it arrived. I also started buying books on photography and photographers.

Eventually a friend talked me into photographing his wedding – I tried to tell him that I had neither the equipment or the experience to do a wedding, but he was insistent. The wedding pictures turned out OK, and suddenly I started to get all sorts of requests for commercial work.

I had a long career as a commercial photographer, doing weddings, portraits, and group photos, as well as specializing in sports photography for the local newspaper and college. But eventually I "burned out" on commercial photography and stopped accepting assignments. When my financial situation later took a turn for the worse, photography became too expensive to pursue as a hobby, so I abandoned it altogether, although I kept my equipment.

Twenty-five years later I finally got back into photography. This was in September, 2017, when I purchased a Pentax K-70 digital camera. Going with Pentax was an easy decision, as many of my old lenses will work with it, and the K-70 had all of the features that I wanted.

I feel like a kid again, rediscovering the joys of photography!

Of course, there is a downside as well: I have approximately 15,000 prints & slides from the film era that I want to convert to digital files... and that's going to take a lot of work.

More photos, along with photo book reviews, features, video links, and downloads of obscure film-era arcana:

https://jayarichardson.com/