I get asked this a bit, so I thought I'd write it down so it will be easier to share.

I've been doing it at some level since high school, but to be honest, I truly sucked at it then. My dad had a Mamiya/Sekor 35mm camera. I used it in the mid 70's till I graduated from high school in 1977. 

I can't be sure, but it was likely the 500DTL, introduced in 1968.  It was essentially the less-expensive sibling of the 1000DTL. Both were substantial, all-metal, fully manual 35mm SLRs. The "500" meant that its fastest shutter speed was 1/500 second; the more expensive 1000DTL went to 1/1000 and also included a self-timer. 

I shot almost exclusively Kodak Tri-X Pan which was a 400 ASA black and white film. 400 was FAST compared to color slide film, which was 64 ASA. ASA and ISO are the same thing.

Fast forward to the 2000's. I bought a couple of really crappy digital cameras out of curiosity and I took snapshots. Then I bought a Nikon E5700 digital "SuperZoom" in 2002. It had an incredible 5 megapixel sensor.

Five megapixels doesn't sound like much now, but 2560 × 1920 was quite respectable in 2002. DPReview found the 5700's resolution above average for the five-megapixel class and praised its metering, color and tonal balance. That lens was a big deal. A 35–280mm equivalent f/2.8–4.2 lens was extremely versatile.

That camera took the "Bee and Lily" photo at the top of this article. I was at the Waco Zoo killing half a day during the US Open (of skeet) in which I was participating. I took that photo and sometime later thought, "Wow, that's not a bad picture, it might even be a photograph." I know it's not all that, but it was a big step up for me.

In 2004 I bought the Canon Digtal Rebel. It was the first DSLR under $1000 and it had a whopping 6 megapixel sensor. This was getting serious, though I knew it would never replace film. I took a couple of shots with it in Canada at Lake Obabika Lodge that did not completely suck.

In 2005 Wendy and I went to New Zealand for our 20th wedding anniversary and the Digital Rebel went along. If you've been, you know it is a target rich environment for landscapes. I got a few good shots there out of the thousands that I took. I thought I might be on to something.

The next 13 years I dabbled, but never really got the process going as I was still self-employed and very busy with the printing company. I sold the company in 2013 and in late December of 2018 I retired. By then I had owned several really good cameras and I was shooting Sony, but I still sucked. 

In 2019 I took my first photo specific tour to Churchill Canada to shoot the Aurora. 2020 was a tough year and I stayed home mostly. In 2021 I took my first trip with Backcountry Journeys and iit was off to the races. Sometime after that I decided to mostly concentrate on wildlife, though I still dabble in landscapes when it is easy pickings.