I got my first "Brownie" camera when I was little girl, and I've been taking photos ever since. When I was a teenager my dad built a darkroom in our garage and we spent many happy hours there exploring photography. The whole process was magical - working blindly in a pitch black room, unraveling undeveloped canisters of film, while trying not to get fingerprints on the strip, waiting patiently for them to develop, then bathing the prints in what seemed like a magic elixir - finally revealing that long awaited image. It was thrilling. Now, in the digital era, technology has opened up a whole new world to photographers. I hope to grow along with these changes and take my photography to the next level. One thing that will never change is photography's role in preserving our most precious memories into images that we can enjoy over and over again.