In your life……There is the first time……your first bike, your first kiss, your first win, your first time you heard music that would be with you forever, your first heartache…. the first time anything happens to you…..you remember this….today I found out from a friend that my First Best Friend…..Evan Wilson…..was sick…..Well, I tried to call but Evan is hard to get in touch with…..so after a while, you just move on till the next time you think about him….the story with Evan and me……well it’s gone way back to 3rd grade…That was when I first met Evan….. he was being picked on by a kid….why I got involved I will never know….the end result was both of us being beat up…..After that day Evan and I became best friends…..yep Evan was my 1st best friend……I was always at his house….his family was my 2nd family…. He had a cool older brother…..Wally….yep just like the Cleaver’s…… and an older sister Caroline…….I always had a childhood crush on her……without making this a novel we were friends…..The last time that I saw Evan was July 2012…..I found out that he was living up north and that his Mother was still alive…. with this news I jump in my car and drove up….it took a while to find his house…… but we did….it was nice to see Evan and especially nice to see his Mom……she was in her 90’s and still doing well……it was a great visit and when I left she said take care may not get to see you again……so the reason for this post is Evan has cancer and does not have long to live…..when your young you think you will live forever….. and suddenly it’s forever is here….. In life, you always lose things…… but you never think it will be “Your first best friend”…….were we not going to live forever…….. there are a lot of things that have broken my heart……this is the newest heartbreak……..I’m sure one day my heart will just fall apart from all the repairs………I had a conversation with Evan today…..it was hard to hear his voice being so weak…… I told him I love him and would always miss our time together……and it brings to mind the Beatles song “In My Life”……as I have gotten older the song just means more to me with each passing year……
If someone had asked me a few years back if I would consider changing Camera Brands my answer would have been No….. I like the camera that I have been using for well….since I was around 12….and I had a large investment in Lenes,,,,,maybe 25 or so….and that camera was a Nikon… My Father would let me use his film Nikon 35mm and he builds me a dark room so I could learn how to develop my photos…. So once I was started I was truly hooked…. The camera went everywhere with me…. I started to take it to school with me….every summer I would go to visit my Aunt in Bakersfield…. and there I got to take more photos…. and there were times that I had another camera…. when I was in the service I had a few cameras….and then I drop out of photography…..oh I still would shoot some photos but not many…….Then something happened….I was on a cruise with friends and someone had this tiny camera…..and it was digital…..oh my…..well it did not take long before I was looking at the new camera’s and the first one I got was a Sony Mavica reason being it used a floppy disk which allowed me to load my photos into my computer……. a very cool thing and soon after that the Nikon D100 from that point on I was back in the Nikon family….I had every one though the d810 and during that time there were good and bad models but I stayed with Nikon. While I was on a trip to Hong Kong I bought my first small digital and it was a Fujifilm… I did not buy because it was a fuji I really did not know that much about the line of cameras……Well let’s fast forward to Jan 2011 I started to hear about a new camera it was called the X 100 it was a small camera body with a fixed prime lens…and I had to have one…. I believe I was one of the first to own it….I got it at Samy’s Camera in Santa Barbara…..and it was love at first snap…..the more I used it the better I like it….don’t get me wrong it like other cameras had problems….sure it was slow to focus and other things but I just love using this camera….. it was followed by X Pro1 and EX 1 and a whole lot of new cameras each one better…..I got my first XPro 1 at Sarbers Camera…..with all three lenses that were offered. …. Nikon had a DF model and it came out just ahead of the Fuji and I was looking to get it….. it was a camera that was supposed. to be a throw-back version with control on the top of the camera……but then one day I was at Looking Glass Cameras and they had a new model called the XT-1…..can love, at first sight, happen for the second time….and as this story is becoming a bit long in the tooth….. so lets speed up the story…..I had some trouble with my XT-1 and was not happy with the way Fuji handled it……So I sold all my Fuji gear and pick up a Nikon DF…. the DF Nikon was a very nice camera and with all the lenses that I had it just made sense to do this…..One camera system just made it better for work…..and then I went to work at Samy’s Camera SF in 2014 and that brought me back to seeing Fuji Camera again…..and I met the Fujifilm Rep….. Barney Tong…..by working with Barney I found myself back looking and thinking about Fuji Camera again…..Barney is by far one of our better Reps and he reassured me that Fuji was better now….and he was right…..well it was not to long that my Nikon D4s and some major lenses were going to go….and so I became a Fujifilm Shooter…..but I still had a Nikon D810 and a few lenses…..you know just in case…..and then Nikon came out with the D850….and it was an amazing camera…..and a rumor of a mirrorless to follow….so I kept some lenses just in case……well the wait was painful and when the camera was introduced it was really a disappointment……really Nikon with the success of the D850 they come out with the Z7…… A few days later Fuji announced the XT-3 and after people got their hands on it…….the word was amazing Fuji has done it again……Well I called my friend John at Samy’s and with some trading, I now have the new Fujifilm camera in my hands…….and no longer own anything Nikon….and the world moves on……it’s just my opinion but Fujifilm is really the best camera company in the world…..as of this moment…….
