I was in Paris a number of years ago, touring Monet's home and garden. On the same bus was a professional photographer with his wife, both fellow americans, and I was just hacking about with my little 35mm Canon Rebel. While I had been into photography fairly seriously when I was younger, at this point I was just doing the odd snapshot.... I didn't even own a tripod.

At one point as this guy was setting up his Pentax 67, I wandered up behind him (in a very public space) and said something to the effect of "now I know where to take my photos.... I'll just follow you around". The guy swung around quickly, and I just smiled and indicated that I was kidding him, and wandered away. Later, I found him sitting on a bench chatting with my wife, and he and his wife invited us to dinner and then to go over to a certain spot he had scouted to take photos of the Eiffel Tower. As I was a rank beginner to this type of photography, he helped me with film choice, let me use his tripod, taught me how to meter and expose in the twilight to capture the image without blowing out the highlights of the fountains in the foreground with a lovely artistic blur. He took his time and helped me out to no end. I have that photograph on my wall and kept in touch over the years, and I credit him for rekindling my love for photography.

Now days, I'll be at the beach or in a garden or out on the street and have my lens pointed at some strange thing.... and people will look at me and what I'm photographing like I'm nuts. I invite them to look through the camera, and I regularly get "Wow.... I didn't even see that", and many times they'll bend over with their point and shoot and attempt the same photo. I love it.... and I love sharing it. I try to avoid it, but occasionally I'll go to Yosemite, Point Lobos, Muir Woods, or somesuch and put my tripod legs in the same well-worn holes that Weston or Adams or Baer did.... and I invite anyone to do the same with the scratchings of my tripod legs wherever they may be found.

Cheers all. D.