My Hobbies, Interests

P H O T O G R A P H Y    by   Nancy Diodati

I started with an interest in photography when I was little more than a teenager.  My interest started with slambooks that made their way through middle and high school at the end of each year.  I kept my slambooks for a few years and looked at the words people wrote.  I wished I had pictures of my classmates to accompany those words so I would not forget the faces that matched the names as the years passed.  I would take my camera to school and captured a few photos here and there.  Most teenagers are either camera shy or big hams, not much in between.  I found people wasted my film making silly faces. It was a pet pive. Developing film was costly and to get back almost half of my photos that were a waste burned my you-know-what!  I found animals to be more cooperative and photogenic!  I figured I'd end up working as a highly paid photographer someday. Somewhere that dream fell by the wayside, along with my childhood dream of being a professional ice skater.  The first time I fell on the ice and ended up with a black eye, I rethought all the hard work it was going to take to pursue the ice skater dream.  Photography was a great deal less physically exasperating. 

Once I moved to New Mexico my interest in capturing images moved from people to landscapes. Certain locations seemed to have a magic about them. It was as if I was standing on Holy Ground.  I chased the morning sunrise and fleeting clouds endlessly as the New Mexico sky is a consistant facination to me.  Sunset provides endless mystery I had to capture before the moment was gone forever.  Monumentalizing time and places gives me a sense of how big God must be and how very clever! 

Even if I did not end up as a highly paid photographer I never lost my love of capturing nature.