Chapter 1

I loved photography. There I was, sixteen years of age, and I basically found myself to be the only yearbook photographer in my school. It wasn’t that others didn’t take photos. It was just that I was the only one doing so ‘full time’. Part of the reason was because my dad was a professional photographer.

Because of his job and my love of the visual arts, I had all his equipment at my disposal to use. Well not all, per se. I wasn’t allowed to use the D2X or any of the large format film cameras at the school. However, the Nikon D50 hand-me-down, was perfect for me. It had all the features one could ask for, and then some. The only limitation was a file size of six megapixels. However, you could print a nice fifteen by twenty-inch print at that resolution. The yearbook, after all, was just eight and a half by eleven.

What made it perfect for me was Dad’s lens collection. I could use anything he didn’t have need of that day. Since Dad had a least two of every lens and in many cases more than that ... Let’s just say I had some real fun with my choices.

You see he had an IR 50 x 500mm AF (Auto Focus) zoom lens that was a killer. No, it didn’t kill people, it was just awesome to use. With its range of 50mm to 500mm of telescopic zoom ... well, it gave a person an unparalleled range of focus.

I could take normal ‘snap shots’, when dialed down to 50mm. At 500, the lens would let me zoom in on the sweat flying from the quarterback’s face, just as the other side was hitting him. It was an incredibly flexible lens to use and made for awesome close-up action shots.

The IR, or infrared mode, made for some interesting ‘low light’ shots. If I converted to Black and White, the camera’s software would get rid of the color distortions, and make the image look normal. Not that the odd color patterns I got at times weren’t interesting, they just weren’t something that would interest the yearbook staff.

When Dad announced that the AF (Auto Focus) feature on the lens had broken one day ... well, I was heartbroken, to say the least. As it turned out, the manual focus still worked. So, I talked to my dad about just giving me the lens as one of my own. He did, of course.

Sometime afterwards, I decided I could fix the autofocus. Well, I thought I had done just that. Fix it, that is.

You can imagine my surprise when I used the lens at the next football game.

I mean, there I was, with the camera pointed at the ball, for the kickoff. I had the camera in continuous burst mode, and was snapping away, when this bare foot kicked the ball.

Now Hank always wore tennis shoes on the field. When I looked up from the camera’s viewfinder, I was shocked to see he was wearing his shoes.

At first, I thought I was seeing things.

Then, when I got into place for a shot of the first scrimmage play line-up, I dialed back the telephoto, to get both teams in the shot. I was shocked to see myself looking at both sides lined up facing each other, in nothing but their pads, helmets and cups.

Well, most of them were wearing cups anyway. I mean there wasn’t a stitch of clothing showing on any of them. I was beginning to think I had lost it. I shot the frames, anyway, pretending I was ok.

The thought occurred to me that maybe the IR filter was imaging the thermals a bit differently than before. I decided to check it and flipped the IR mode switch to ‘off’. Everyone had their uniform back on. I shot the rest of the game like that.

I must have done something to the IR mode I mused to myself. I would have to work on it later and see if I could fix that as well.

So, I had a one-track mind! I wanted things to work correctly. What can I say? It didn’t even occur to me that I had what amounted to an x-ray vision lens on the camera at the time.

However, it did occur to me when the cheerleaders took to the field at half-time, to work up the crowd.

That’s when I decided to flip the IR back on “for some reason”. Guess what, there were twelve of the prettiest girls in school in my lens ... and the best part was that they were all naked. Being you’re average sixteen-year-old male, I started to snap away.

Well? What sixteen-year-old male wouldn’t do such a thing? At least one that found himself with an x-ray vision camera lens. Ok, technically, it wasn’t x-ray. It was IR and it was imaging though the clothing of anyone I looked at. Needless for me to say but, the 12 girls on the field were photographed in far more detail than I normally would take the time to do. I had to change the Memory card out because I filled it up. I always carried 3 of them. Though this is the first time I had taken all 575 images on one card at one football game.

I did position myself on the line closer to the cheerleaders after half-time. Strangely, I never did take any more shots of the team. I did get lots of close ups of the bouncing boobs that danced in front of my lens, however. Not mention the beaver shots. I was surprised to note that four of the girls shaved down there. At least I think they shaved. All in all, it made for much cleaner close-up shots on the ones with bare snatches. Now I have read a lot about nude art photography, but this lesson was more than enough to put the book work into perspective. At least when the subject didn’t know they were nude.

Then I saw Mary Ann in the stands. Well, what can I say; Mary Ann should have been a cheerleader. She had the longest red heir I had ever seen on a girl. Her ‘D’ sized breasts made the rest of her perfect body into a vision of loveliness. For some reason, my camera was focused on her for most of the last quarter. I mean how could I go wrong here. This girl was the perfect nude model. Even if she didn’t know she was nude.

Now for those of you that don’t know, a 500mm lens is good for very close up work, even from a hundred feet away. I could focus on a nipple at full magnification and have nothing else in the image. Needless to say, the few shots I got between her legs were at full magnification. The sight was enough to make me almost come in my pants.