I’m Wayne West, my interest in photography began back in my high school days in Phoenix far too long ago.  I spent a summer mowing yards to earn money to buy my first camera, a Yashica Mat-124G.  I loved that camera, and it is still, in my opinion, one of the best possible cameras for a beginner who is seriously interested in studying photography.  Let’s look at the features, shall we?  Manual focus.  Manual exposure.  Fixed 80mm lens.  12 (or 24) exposures.  Glorious quality with a 2.5″ square negative.  It was a camera that forced you to pay attention to what you were doing, and it could produce fabulous results.  A 2.5″ Ektachrome slide is an amazing thing to see, exceeded only by 4×5 and larger transparencies.  I still have my first Yashica Mat, but it’s not in working order.  More’s the pity.

So why start a web site and show off my work and blather about photography in a blog?  I started the web site because I wanted to show some of my work, kind of self-evident.  The blog I’m starting because, although there are many good photography blogs out there (like Ken Rockwell’s), I do have observations of my own and some lessons to teach, and this is where I shall grab a soap box and do some pontificating.  A few years ago I was at the Valley of Fire near Carrizoza, New Mexico, and I saw a photographic opportunity that was a perfect example of a phrase of Ansel Adams: “Photography is knowing where to stand.”  So I shot examples of it.  But where to put it?  Where to talk about it?

Well, in the words of Lauri Anderson, this must be the place.

We’ll chat more later.