Walt Payne became interested in photography at a very early age. At around age 3 he sat and watched his father flash a light onto some paper, dip it in “water”, wave his magic wand (the photography tongs) and say a mumbled incantation and suddenly a picture would appear on the paper. And at that point he was hooked on photography.
At age 14 he got permission to use his father’s abandoned equipment to set up his own darkroom in his parent’s basement. It was a slow process when one had to develop a full roll of up to 36 pictures, compare the notes to the results, and try again. But it also weeded out the less than dedicated very quickly. Color was way beyond his budget, so he learned to make due with black and white.
When he left for the Air Force at age 18 he mostly gave up on being able to support his hobby, until many years later when the age of digital photography arrived and made it so that anyone could take reasonably good pictures. At that point the rusty lessons learned provided him with a good foundation for the advanced photographic techniques that most had no inclination to learn. And a passion was reignited.
Walt Payne is a passionate nature photographer. Being a morning person, he was also destined to fall in love with sunrise photography. And for some unknown reason a love of old barns, especially wooden ones, arose. Then his wife Beth became interested in photography, especially macro photography, and a love for a different aspect of nature photography was kindled. And now, bees and butterflies have been added to his many photographic loves.