My love of photography began early. As a child with my first camera — a Kodak Instamatic 126 — I peered through its tiny, cloudy square viewfinder and saw a world of patterns, details, color, and light. It took me years to fully appreciate black and white, because even on bad days I seem to see a thousand shades of color.

 Times were hard, and taking pictures was costly. When I was thirteen, my mother — knowing my passion — gave me the best camera she could afford for Christmas: a simple 35mm with a single lens, a flash, and a 2x extender. My budget for film and the cheapest processing meant I had to choose every frame carefully. Still, some of those photographs remain with me today, along with that same camera, which I keep as a reminder of where I started.

 I quickly learned that the best images often have to be traveled to and waited for — luxuries not easily afforded when you work twice as hard just to break even. That challenge drew me deeper into mechanical work, where I learned to make the most of what I had, push equipment beyond its limits, and fight to keep time in my days for photography.

 I was lucky to have grandparents and an uncle still farming the family homestead, and they took me in most summers. There, I learned to operate, fix, and use equipment of all kinds. By high school graduation, I’d found a vocational program in Photo Processing, Lab Equipment, and Repair — a perfect bridge between my love of images and my mechanical skills.

 Thanks to my high school teacher, Mr. Binder, I had already taken three semesters of photography classes before starting the program. My new instructors quickly saw that I was ahead of the rest of the class and let me loose in the darkroom and studio. Those years deepened my skills but didn’t yet pay the bills.

 It was there that I met my future wife. We shared a dream: to have our own studio and make a living through photography. But for me, that dream grew even bigger. While working in photo labs, I began to imagine building an RV into a traveling art studio — taking photo processing equipment, and later prototype digital gear, on the road with my young family. I wanted to be the first “digital nomad” before the world even knew what that was. That vision became tied to our shared business dream, each feeding the other as a means to a life of freedom and creation.

 But dreams can be fragile. The need to earn a living pulled me toward the repair side of the photo processing industry. For over a decade, I traveled the world through other people’s photographs — images that passed through the equipment I kept running. It was absolute torture to be tied to a paycheck that kept me from making my own work.

 The industry was dying. Digital technology was replacing film, and I could see that photo labs were headed the way of the milkman. In desperation, I made my first big mistake — buying a failing small lab with no money, hoping to save our dream. When that failed, I didn’t just lose a business. I lost the RV vision, the traveling art studio, and the future I’d been building toward. It made the loss cut that much deeper.

 I put down my cameras. I was so bitter I even failed to capture my young children as they grew. I moved into information technology — my first true 9-to-5 job with vacation and healthcare. The stability was a relief, enough to numb the ache of not creating. Years passed. Digital cameras and printers improved, and eventually I bought one… then another… then a DSLR with matched zoom lenses. Slowly, the vision came back — seeing images in colors, textures, and light. But life still had a way of knocking me down whenever I began to rise.

 Five years ago, that RV dream still pulling at me led me to start looking at school buses. Following those auctions eventually introduced me to military trucks, and in 2020 we bought a very large military truck with the plan to turn it into a future home on wheels — something that could go anywhere. That’s when we launched the **A7TonInWY** YouTube channel and website. This adventure made me realize how outdated my camera equipment was, and in that moment, the long-repressed passion for photography, videography, and more came roaring back to life.

 Last year, I had enough. I decided — even if only in my head — “Damn it, I’m going to do this my way”. I rented the high-end equipment I’d always dreamed of using, took a week off work, and photographed places close to home but far from my daily routine. The joy was overwhelming. I splurged, took on some debt, bought some of the gear I had rented, and did it again.

 Now I stand here with the tools, the passion, and the vision I’ve carried since that Kodak Instamatic — determined to create, to travel, and to live these years fully. Every photograph I take is a step toward that life. And if one of my images finds its way into your hands, I hope it carries not just the light I saw, but the journey it took to get there.

The Journey Continues

 I’ve learned that my best images come when I can wander slowly through a landscape, letting the light reveal itself over time. But that’s also been my greatest obstacle — rarely having the time, the housing, or the mobility to linger in one place long enough to truly see it. Too often, I’ve had to rush past moments that deserved hours, or skip places entirely because I couldn’t get there in the first place.

 I feel the longing every single day — in the mornings when I wake, on my commute as the sun sets or the moon rises. Sometimes it hits so hard it brings me to tears. I know my days ahead are numbered, as they are for everyone. The world changes constantly, and so much will never be seen again. So much cries out to be noticed, to be shared.

 Every landscape, every light, every moment has a feeling and a story that deserves to live beyond the instant it happens. And yet, I feel trapped by the limits of my current life — frustrated that I can’t move as freely as my heart demands. I know I can’t afford to lose my dream again. I have to find a way to break through the walls.

 A few days ago — or maybe it was a few weeks — the morning was sharp, the colors alive, the air filled with the chatter of birds. I thought: *Two years from now, I could be out there somewhere in our truck, having just captured the best of the dawn with my camera, drone, or video camera.* I imagined resting after the shoot, or preparing to move on, just soaking in the moment — at peace.

 I pictured making prints from those images, sharing not just what they looked like, but the emotions they carried — so they would not go unwitnessed, unloved, and forgotten in the darkness. The world is changing, has changed, and will keep changing. Maybe if people were more aware of the world, those changes wouldn’t feel so dark. For those who care, there should be a record of what was lost. For those who want to act, there needs to be proof. And for everyone else… there should at least be the evidence.