Well Alabama Shutterbugs is ringing in a New Year. Glad to see all the people that have joined our little group.

We have a lot of hopes for 2009, to start off with we have went back to a scheduled meeting date, 6:30 at Rons BBQ in Alexandria on the 3rd Thursday of each month. With this scheduled meeting hopefully more people will be able to make it with knowing the time and place in advance.

The next thing is we are going to work on is photographic outings or a workshop every 3 months. The 1st one is scheduled for January 17th at Guntersville State Park in hopes of catching America’s pride in action, the Bald Eagle. Check the Discussion Forum for more information.

Finally we have redone our photo contest and hopefully is more flexible so everyone can join in. Check out the Contest page for all the details.

Oh Yeah I almost forgot about the Calendar, I have updated it with events for 2009 that should be photo friendly. If you have any information on events or something you would like updated to the Calendar email me at mheston@alphoto.org

Happy Picture Taking

Unfortunately, I do not have that camera any longer. I don’t remember when I lost it. It is not even in my memory. I remember neither the name of the camera nor the company who made it. All I remember is the shape of the camera, weight of the camera (I should say lightness of the camera, rather), and cheapness when press its shutter. They, however, can’t be a clue to find what it was.

It is as if I am trying to find a girl who I fell in love the first time in my life. I want to see her, but I don’t at the same time. Several months had passed without any success to find my very first camera.

My first lover should live only in my sweet memory. The very first camera might be the same.

One day when I was in the bathroom, very important clue to find my first camera came to my mind all of sudden. I would like to mention that bathrobe is not just a place for excretion. It is at the same time the sacred meditation field for me.

My first camera was using the film called “Bolta film”. It was a 35mm film without perforation, was fixed onto a backing paper. Only B&W was available. The name was “Lightpan SS”

After the extensive search, I eventually manage to find the camera. It was Anny 10 which was made by Hoei Industrial Company in Japan. This is it! This is the camera that I had the very first time in my life.

I did a bit of net surfing. I found photos of this camera. I obtained permission from the people who are running these web sites.

Nowadays, we call this kind of things “Toy camera”. In those days, however, there weren’t such a word like toy camera.

Focal length was 50mm. It was made of single lens, fixed focus. Therefore, there was no need for focusing. You can switch the aperture between F8 and F11. To believe it or not, it had a connector for strobe. Yes, we had to change strobe bulb each time after we fired.

I must say that this toy camera did a tremendous job for me. I still remember that I shot a picture of my father in underwear under summer shine. He, by the way, owned Olympus Pen F at that time. He has taken eternal residence in the better place.

Well, forks! What was your very first camera in your life?

This post was written by Masumi Yamamuro AKA surgeon24hrs. If you have a story you’d like to share, please send it to contact@alphoto.org.

After spending some photographing the track we then made our way back to pits to try our luck at photographing a pit stop in action. This was a challenge for us to get good pit stop photos while staying inside rules, but we managed to pull off a couple of shots.

After a short break, recovery from heat stroke, and lunch, we again made our way back to the track for the final race of the day. As the National Anthem ended with a fly over, the track roared to life.

We thought we saw fast racing before… we now realized we were wrong. At first the cars made their way around the track with the pace car. Then, once the pace car pulled off and the green flag dropped, the true roar of the cars was known, and it was deafening! The intensity of these cars going around the track made the time trials look like an evening cruise.

As the race neared its end, the drivers became more fatigued, and aggressive in an attempt to win the race. This resulted in a few accidents, bumps, and bruised egos.

The winning drivers were Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.

After the race ended and we were once again on our way home, at that time we realized we would never be able to attend another race without a press pass again.

P.S. Oh Yeah Patrick Dempsey was also there.

So what did you think about this photo story? Would you like to see more or less like this? Would you like to write something like this for the website? Be sure to send us an e-mail and let us know!

Hello Shutterbugs,
On Saturday July 19 Jay and I attended the Barber Porsche 250. This consisted of the the Suntrust MOTO-ST, Ford Racing Mustang Challenge, Skip Barber National, and the Rolex Sports Car Series with Daytona Prototypes and GT cars.

Thankfully were were able to acquire press passes, and upon arrival we headed straight to the press booth. Our day started here with the mandatory photographers meeting, where they they laid down the rules, but it seemed to be over sooner than it started. We were all given lovely green vests to wear and on our way to the track, anxious to see what the day would bring.

We started out by going through the first 6 turns photographing the MOTO-ST practice runs. It was very exciting and a lot of work at first; framing up the bikes as they raced at high speed. It wasn’t long before the extremely high temperatures started to hit us and the day had only begun, it was that hot! Before we knew it the MOTO-ST bikes were done and the roar of the cars began, Jay immediately opted for the safety of his earplugs. At the time, the racing seemed very intense, but little did we know what they had in store for the final race.

By now we had realized the need for cold water. Our friend Greg let us in on a little secret, “The corner workers have the coldest water”, so after taking a little pit-stop, we were back to photographing the cars for the rest of the day.

After the the final race of the day, we were armed and ready to make our first attempt photographing the winners circle. A challenge that we had been wanting to attempt for a long time.

At the end of the day, as we headed back to Jacksonville we were extremely tired but still very excited about the possibilities the next day would bring.