Herb Keppler's colum was the first thing I read each month when I opened a new issue of Pop Photohraphy. His way of looking at photography had a great infuence on me.

I am a gear head. How I take the picture is as important to me as the picture. In 2003, I was lusting after Nikon's F5. I had no illusions that owning one would make me a better photographer, I just thought that the F5 was the end all and be all of 35 mm cameras. Herb's colums from The August 2003 and December 2003 tempered my gear lust.

August 2003 - The CAT did it. Showed me what could be done with inexpensive 500mm mirror lenses. I was skeptical, but I bought a few mirror lenses and had a ball with them. I got some great shots and didn't have to save up for years to by a "big" lens.

December 2003 - Can the Bottom of the Barrel be the Tops. Herb reviews 2 of the cheapest 35mm SLRs on the market that year. He cited the virtures of the "cheap " cameras and told how much fun they were to use. I bit, I bought one of them a few months later and made thousands of exposures with it. It lived in my back pack for 3 years. I even had had a few of the pictures I made with it published. BTW, the camera and lens cost me $58.00 plus $11.00 shipping. The first picture from this camer I sold paid $80.00. Not bad.

Herb, I will l miss your colum. I think I will take my Vivtar V3800 out of the cabinet and run a few rolls thru it in honor of you.