For reasons that got clearer as I got older, my parents sent me off to summer camp when I reached the age of 10. For the next 5 summers I would spend 3 weeks "far" away from my Des Moines, Iowa home in the wilds of northern Wisconsin. And, while there were many lessons learned during those hot summer days and nights, none had a larger or more lasting impact on the trajectory of my life than the darkroom class I took during that initial summer. Watching that first print appear from a tray full of developer was like magic to a 10-year-old. As soon as camp was over and I arrived back home, I started bugging my mom to get a camera and set up a darkroom. I can only imagine what she was thinking, but, whatever her notions, she helped me get started. We went to a garage sale where I bought a used Argus C3 camera and enough gear to set up a small darkroom in my basement. I have spent most days of my life since then with a camera in my hand and the memory of the feeling of awe and wonder in my heart. To this day, when I make a photograph, I still get excited to see what I've captured. It's that same wonder I felt as a 10 year old so many decades ago. Sometimes in life, there are moments that reveal themselves and, if you are listening, they tell you what it is that stirs your soul. Not sure how I got so lucky to figure it out so early in life, but as I look back, there is no question that I was meant to be a photographer. The famous photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson used to define a telling moment in a photograph as the "decisive moment". That's the moment that must be captured in a photo to tell the story accurately. The "decisive moment" of my life was going away to summer camp. And, I'm happy to say, camp is still in session!