I never recall that conversation without feeling old.

   Well, old…er. But in looking back at that first job for a weekly newspaper in Amarillo, Texas, I am amazed at the changes--some gone, some bad.

   I made $25 a week then, and thought I was rich. And if measured by the satisfaction of learning, in retrospect I can admit I was. In the intervening years, I have gathered enough war stories to burgeon many a blog. Most of them are funny and I’m usually the object of the joke. For there isn’t a mistake possible to make in photography that I can’t claim.

   Example: My first assignment. "I’ll be with you in just a second," I tell the woman with the impatient Basenji dog. "just as soon as I figure out these instructions on how to load the camera." There’s nothing like instilling confidence in a subject and that is nothing like it.

   From a selfish standpoint, one purpose for this blog (a word that sounds like something spilled on the carpet but I’m afraid we’re stuck with it) is to share those stories. But also to hear yours.

   There are only two ways to learn photography: The first is to keep shooting. The second is to study what others are shooting. That’s the real idea here--talking about photography, laughing at our mistakes, looking at photographs.

   This venue isn’t exactly the Executive Surf Club. But it’s a sneaky (the ultimate superlative: good, better, best, sneaky) way to share photographs.

   And to have a conversation.

   I’ll start with my name. It rhymes with "rough." But, over the years, I’ve learned to answer to Clow, Cloof, Cloh, Clog and Clug. Once, over a U.S. Navy public address system, they called for "Cloogie." That was too far off the bell curve for me to react. Now I just tell people that I was very young when I was given that name or I would have done something about it.

   Back to photography. If you are interested you can peruse my website: www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/Bill1941

    Some are individual frames; some are albums.

   I’m just as curious to see what you shoot.

   "But I’m not a photojournalist," some may say. I beg to differ. The whole reason anyone shoots a picture is to tell a story. This is me. I was here. This is important to me.

   "But, I don’t own any of those fancy cameras."

   Doesn’t matter. True, I use both with Leicas (film) and Nikons (digital). I pick up the single-lens reflexes when shooting for a client. The rangefinders are for what used to be called "pictures at the end of the roll"--frames taken not for others but for ourselves.

   However, it isn’t equipment that counts, or not much, anyway. It isn’t brands of camera or retinue of lenses or bags of accessories. All that is mechanics.

   It’s the human eye that sees the picture.

   And that’s a truth known long ago. I believe it was photographer Man Ray who reported finding some words etched in stone over a door in Europe:

   Of what use are lens and light 

   For those who lack in mind and sight?

  That entranceway dates back to the Medieval--long before the invention of photography.