Lou Janelle

My interest in photography began while I was in Viet Nam.  Many of us there had time and money to spare, plus an interest in recording all the sights around us.  Good photography equipment was readily available from the PX. I bought a Minolta SRT-101, along with the zoom and wide angle lenses.  I took lots of pictures of my new surroundings with the hopes of showing them to friends and family back home.  I was very lucky in that I was assigned to the largest military base in Viet Nam. The base had a photography craft shop where we could process our film, make prints and mount slides. 

When I returned home, I enrolled at Kent State University and took several photography classes and did some work for the campus newspaper.  After Kent State, I began my career and we started our family.  I quickly learned that family vacations and photography were hard to combine.  Fast forward a few years - and a few point and shoot cameras for family pics and events, but nothing serious.

My oldest brother, Herral, was a photographer for the Toledo Blade for over 60 years.  When I was liquidating my brother's assets and estate, I was searching for a digital camera that he had used. Herral was a great guy and would loan anyone almost anything. Apparently all his digital equipment had found homes somewhere else.  A very good friend of Herrals, Bruce Dale, had worked for National Geographic and was currently doing testing and evaluation on the Panasonic Lumix cameras.  As a result of Bruce Dale’s suggestion, I purchased the Lumix bridge camera.  I have found it to be a good reliable, economical camera that produces good quality photos.

I am not as serious a photographer as many others in the camera club, but I still enjoy taking photographs on occasion.  My pleasure comes from creating the  image with my camera, not by using software such as Photoshop or Lightroom.  I  like to look for patterns that I see occurring naturally around me and capturing those images with my camera.

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