For my 16th birthday I got the all-time best birthday present ever. Traveling from Detroit to our home in western Michigan, my father passed through Ann Arbor. This was just before I-94 had opened and so he had to make his way through town. Ann Arbor was the world headquarters for Argus cameras. He stopped and bought my first real serious camera, an Argus C-4. It used 35 mm film and I was thrilled to have it. I used that camera almost ten years - moving away from it only to get away from the fixed lens (and to get the new internal metering system). I still have the camera.

This photo came off the first roll of film shot on the C-4. I was studying in an office that had this view. It was March, but we had a cold snap and it was close to zero outside. I recall dropping my studies , wrapping up and moving outside as quickly as I could to capture the light on the sky and cold snow.