The History of Photography: 1996

Finally find a decent processor up here, Pro-Tech (now Image-Tech, and way more expensive) in Minneapolis. Go to Holmes's wedding in Idaho. Take slides on Nikon, prints on Mamiya. On way out, shoot slides on T-4 for fun, it works pretty nicely. Impressively, my wife manages to catch me in midair leaping of a rock into the Salmon River during a whitewater rafting trip despite using a Yashica T-4 with the autofocus delay. Settling into general travel bag of funny-colored Domke Original with FE 20, 28, 55 and 105 and Mamiya 6 with 50 and 75. While versatile, this weighs a lot. especially when you add the Vivitar 283, Sekonic L-308B light meter, Minolta mini-tripod, Minolta cable release, etc. In Montana on way home my daughter spills a Coke onto camera bag which sheds it right into light meter in outside pocket. After a couple of days to congeal, the switches all gum up. Things go better with Coke. I later disassemble and clean the switches and now it works fine again. Whew. Daughter is still a mess, though. Gotta keep working on her. One day in Christian Photo in Des Moines, see beautiful folding Fuji 120 rangefinder (GA645?). This would be so cool, medium format and more compact than even the folded Mamiya 6 with 75mm. Then, flashbacks to freezing winter bike rides to get Fuji ST-801 body with bad shutter over and over. Decline to purchase. Later reading in Medium Format Digest makes me glad I did. Still, it would be a very cool camera if properly executed.

In professional life, I start at MSI Insurance in Arden Hills, about five miles from home. MSI would proceed to get into deep trouble and be rescued by COUNTRY Financial. I'd work at one firm and then the other until early 2013.