Jim Nelson has been carrying a camera around with him for most of his life. He remembers loving photography as a young child after receiving a Kodak Instamatic X-15 with it’s 126 film cartridges that came wrapped in tightly sealed foil packages. He said he really couldn’t remember how his passion started but there was a time when he was eleven or twelve and was on a road trip with his family. They were in the mountains and when they stopped along the way he got out with his camera in hand and began taking photos. His parents noticed how many photos he was taking and the cost that was going to incur for developing and replacing the film. However, his father commented on how he “could see a photographer going crazy in an area like this” at which point his mother replied, “One is.” These comments stuck with Nelson and he happily used that Instamatic for a good 15 years.

When he was in his late teens, Nelson he acquired his dad’s 35mm Aries 35-V, which saw him through to the digital age. Through the years it was rare that he didn’t have a camera bag with him or at least a small camera in his pocket. He lost his little camera two years ago in View Lake as it dropped through the slats of the paddle boat he and his wife Annette had rented and is now part of the sludge they have been removing at Lake View. He replaced it with a cell phone which are able to capture some fantastic photos and has produced some of his favorite shots.

Nelson has an appreciation and interest in all forms of photography and hopes someday to be able to dedicate the time and energy to improving his skills and finding his niche. He and Annette both work full time so they have to make a conscious effort to carve out time for photography. Annette is interested in macro photography and so they have many plans to explore this in depth once they retire.

Nelson moved to Sun City and joined the Camera Guild soon after. He hasn’t used many of the resources available to members until the last few weeks getting his photos together for the Who’s Who article. He is finding he actually likes printing some of his work and has learned quite a bit in the process of it all. One of the areas that has been particularly helpful to him are the monthly meetings, as he feels he gains nuggets of information that have triggered his thinking before pressing the shutter and consequently improving his images. He has found peace with the post-processing procedures such as Photoshop and now realizes, “that as good as cameras are and as smart as we try to make them, they still pale in comparison to the capabilities of the human eye and brain in how they view a scene.”

Nelson encourages people to come by and tour the Camera Guild club room and view the latest photos on display taken by the members, some recently recognized at the state level ACCC fall contest.

View some of Nelson’s images at suncityaz.org/recreation/clubs/camera-guild-of-sun-city.