(apologies to Bill Cosby) When I was about to turn 12 I got the chance to go to Idaho and stay with my aunt and uncle. Uncle Steve was a professional photographer of extremely high caliber. It is told that he took some classes at USF from Ansel Adams. I cannot verify this except to acknowledge his mastery of the "Zone System" and the beauty of his black and white photography with film from 35mm to 11 x 14 plates from his view camera. That summer with them was my introduction, under Uncle Steves tutelage, to camera. lens, film, composition, darkroom (wet and dry), enlarging and developing both negatives and prints. The first time I saw the grays starting to come up in the developing tray of a photo which I shot, developed the negatives and made the test strip and final image with his enlargers I was gone. No turning back ever. From that moment on photography was my blood. Purely.

Today I have Glen Ellen Photography in the town of that same name in north California's wine country of Sonoma and the Valley of the Moon. I am semi retired but that doesn't mean I am not as busy as I ever was. I hope to die getting my last shot, photographically speaking mind you if you are an imbiber.

I am father of three grown children have been married for almost 38 years to my wife Vicki.

Recently I put together a website for my photography. I started out with the software I needed and built the site from scratch. As I built it I started to realize that having the site would be great but I needed to cement a web presence to have it work for me. What has ensued is an almost 2 month blitz of getting to know all the social media that is available. Myspace is my last port for a while. I need, desperately, to get back to photography as that is the air I breathe.

Looking very much forward to meeting a lot of people on Myspace. I love sharing photographic insights and stories with anyone that is interested in the medium.

My equipment consists of: Mamiya RB67 Pro SD medium format camera with bellows focus.

Mamiya m645 medium format camera.

A plethora of lenses for the above.

35mm SLR's consist of my Nikon Photomic FTn, Nikon N90s and Nikon F5'.

Digital is Nikon D70s and Nikon D300. Both are superb photo takers.

I also still have my Besseler Color enlarger and Color analyzer. An Omega enlarger and myriad tanks and trays and the GrayLab timer that is almost as old as I am.

I stressed over shutting down and converting my darkroom but knew clearly that Digital was here to stay. That being said, I still used the DR until 2005 before I closed it down.

So, there is the long and the short of me as a person and photographer. I will mention that I am a Christian and still have a very open mind and an occasional beer. YUP, Pope might not like that but I could care less about his opinion.

See you in yourspace I hope.

Visit my site, store and blog at http://www.glenellenphotography.com and follow the links. Especially the link to the "Communication" page. There you can leave comments on what you liked, enjoyed or hated. I am good at what I do but pride comes before a fall. I am always open to suggestions as to what works or doesn't. If I wasn't I could not have survived in the photographic medium for some 40 odd years.

TCrowe