Sailing

One of my other great passions besides photography is sailing, the other day I finally put the Hobie cat on the beach in muskegon and took it out for the first time.  Unfortunately there was absolutely no wind so drifting and taking pictures was the only option.  The one problem with taking pictures from a boat like this is the absolute certainty of ruining a camera due to water damage so a year ago I “invested” in a $12 water proof camera.  It has no manual controls of any kind and as far as I can see doesn’t have any way of changing exposure automatically.  It is the perfect point and shoot for the boat however and by the end of the summer I am sure there will be plenty of pictures up here from it.

 

Farewell to a Friend

There are some mechanical things that somehow breed attachment in us humans, whether it be a car, a watch or in my case a silly little camera. I have invested thousands in equipment to make sure that I stay on the cutting edge of the digital SLR market to give the best result for my clients, but ironically my own personal camera, the one I have taken on all my trips, to all the family occasions and even to the birth of my child has been a 2 megapixel 6 year old Canon Elph. It’s just a simple little point and shoot, no manual controls and nothing to differentiate it from the millions just like it but somehow I grew attached.

In 2002 I bought it, it was my first digital camera and I took it everywhere, recording most of my memories from the last six years. It went to Spain, France and England for six months when I studied abroad, out to the Canadian rockies for three weeks of wet and cold backpacking and repeatedly got soaked on lake Michigan when a friend and I had time to go out sailing. I abused it, lost it, found it back, dropped it in lakes, let my 10 year old brother use it and hoisted it to the top of sailboat masts, but it just kept working, until a week ago. It finally died and Canon says it costs more to fix than to get a new one. I am amazed that it lasted this long quite frankly, but I still am a little sad it is gone. When you think about a camera, it is usually just a tool, something that is used but not appreciated and this is totally true of my camera and exactly the reason I liked it so much. It went everywhere I did, never complained and never seemed to care how I treated it, just kept doing its job and for that I will miss it a little. Here are a few samples from the fun it had in its glorious youth. Nothing amazing, but it didn’t like to show off too much, just did the job.

Charles Dykstra’s Blog

    Welcome to my blog.  This is a space that I will dedicate mostly to the happenings of Dykstra Photography, our past and current projects as well as future ideas and goals.  This is a place where you can get the feel for what we do and who we are, as well as leave feedback on our work.