I recently came across some old pictures of mine.  One of the things that I found was my first attempt at wildlife photography.  At the time I had no intentions of ever becoming a photographer and knew nothing about photography.  What I did want to do was explore the world.

At a summer camp I attended, in 1985, in the Adirondacks I had my first opportunity to do some exploring without adults around.  One of the campers and I grabbed a paddle boat and set off on Saranac Lake.  Not long into our voyage I spotted a Blue Heron and decided that I wanted to get a picture of it. 

Armed with my Kodak disc point and shoot camera and our bright yellow paddle boat we set off to get as close to the bird as possible.  The following series of photos documents my attempt.  Not very good to say the least but I still remember the rush I got from the attempt. 



Only in the original photo can you even barely make out the Heron in the fist picture.  So much for using a short fixed focal length lens.



The bird is actually visible here but it just looks like a stick in the center of the frame.



Guess what?  Herons apparently don't like kids in bright yellow paddle boats chasing them.  Either that or this just didn't want his picture taken. 



This one would also count as one of my first pictures of birds in flight.



These are the original negatives from the disk film.  It was great for kids because it was so easy to load and unload from the camera.

Amazing how photography has changed since 1985.  It's even more amazing to think back on all the exploring I have done and all the things that I have been fortunate enough to photograph since then.