Our Photographer of the Month is Connie Reinhart

In the summer of 1965 we went to Two Guys from Harrison in Allentown and bought a developing kit. Then we put film in Bob’s old Brownie Hawkeye and the rest is history. We soon had a real darkroom and were developing and printing our own B&W photos.

We joined the Palmerton Camera Club about 1970. We took weddings and portraits (like everyone else). We tried color printing; the instructions for doing this said, “First, make a perfect print.” Hmm. So much for that idea.

Slide shows became the big thing in photo clubs, and we gradually got away from B&W. Through the years we stayed active in the Palmerton Camera Club, attended Photo Conferences at NECCC and the Berks Photo Conferences. We always came home with great ideas. We gave photo lessons to Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, school classes, individuals. We put on shows for local organizations about our travel adventures and also set our slides to favorite songs. We do a lot of photographic work for the Palmerton Historical Society and the Kibler One-room Schoolhouse. 

We started with Nikon equipment, but switched to Canon for digital. Canon had the best deal then, and our Nikon equipment was too old to be compatible with the Nikon digital cameras. We dragged our feet making the change to digital, but soon there was no turning back. The photo editing software available today is fantastic. I have become a post-processing junkie, forever tweaking my images.

Our favorite subject is anything that moves us. We were lucky to have traveled to many interesting places and have the thousands of images to remember them by. My photographic bucket list includes photographing the Milky Way. The best spot to take a picture is ‘where you are.’ The best equipment is the camera you have with you. Photography is a never-ending journey in learning, and the road is paved with beautiful images.