Putting together an internet photo
album takes a lot of work, but it
also brings great satisfaction.

Hello and welcome to my photo website. My name is Steve Minkler and I began building this internet photo album in August of 2007. I am having a lot of fun putting it all together, and I plan to continue adding to it (hopefully) for many years to come. I do apologize for the somewhat slow loading times of certain pages on this site, but that is because the pages are very graphic intensive.

This is me with my 25 year old Canon AE-1P camera in hand.

Photography has been a favorite pastime and passion of mine since 1983. However, it has remained a hobby and is not my main profession (although I wish it were). I draw custom house plans for a living in Southern California. If you are interested in custom home design, please feel free to visit my other website at www.Minkler-House-Plans.com to see what I do.

I grew up in Escondido, California (in north San Diego County). I am a big San Diego Padre baseball fan and enjoy many different types of music. I have been married to my wonderful wife Karen for 17 years. She grew up in Eugene, Oregon and loves the scenic beauty of the Northwest. She is also the inspiration for this website. We currently live in San Jacinto, California and love to travel whenever possible. And we are both Christians who love the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that He is the only way to the Father - and ultimately to Heaven.

The island of Kauai, Hawaii is our favorite vacation spot. There are many pictures of Hawaii featured throughout this internet photo album.

Creating an internet photo album is made a little bit easier if all of your pictures are already in digital form. Mine were not since over 90% of my images were originally shot on film. So I began by scanning lots of slides and negatives into digital files. Then I re-sized and optimized them for the internet. I invested in a dedicated film scanner (a Nikon Coolscan V) in 2006 and began the long and laborious process of digitizing images. (As a side note, I purchased the scanner at Calumet Photo in Escondido and received lots of free help and support from their store manager as I learned how to use the scanner correctly. I have never received better customer service from a photography store in my life. You don't have to live near one of their stores to receive this excellent service either - you can Shop for Photo Products at calumetphoto.com.) While enjoyable, the scanning process is very time-consuming. After several months (to save time), I had some photographs and slides scanned commercially at a local photo store close to my home.

To this day, I still do all of my serious shooting with a 35mm film camera. It is a Canon AE-1P which I purchased back in 1983 and it still operates perfectly. I have also (on occasion) used a Minolta X-370 camera, and lately have been taking lots of casual photos with a Kodak digital compact. However, most of the photographs you see on this site were taken with the Canon SLR. I subscribe to Popular Photography magazine and also to Shutterbug, and enjoy reading their camera and lens reviews each month. I do hope to purchase a digital SLR someday. My leading candidates include the Canon Rebel XSi, the Nikon D80, and the Olympus E-520.

Another favorite pastime of mine is going to a Padre game.

This internet photo album begins with pictures and information about San Diego, since I have more photos of that particular city and area than anywhere else. Karen and I would both like to go back to Hawaii again (our favorite vacation spot) and collect more photos of that beautiful place. And we both have family members living in Oregon, so I hope to add more photos of the Northwest from time to time.

Building this internet photo album allows me to share my "photographs and memories" (anyone remember that Jim Croce song?) of some favorite travel destinations. Some of the images on this website are also featured on the Shutterpoint stock photo site. I have recently set up a online photo store where you can purchase prints (in many different sizes) of some photographs on this site. I plan to add more photos to the store from time to time. If there are specific photographs you would like to see offered for sale, please let me know. A "Contact Me" box is provided below. You can also order photo items such as shirts, caps, coffee mugs, etc. from the store. Click here to visit my online Photo Store.


How This Internet Photo Album Got Started.

Online photo galleries are a great way for lesser known photographers and amateur hobbyists (such as myself) to become known and showcase their talents. However, you need to build a website that generates traffic or else no one will find you (that is the unfortunate case with 99% of the websites on the internet). My wife Karen discovered a unique and rare web-building company in late 2006 called Site Build It (or SBI).

Using SBI's tools and design templates, I created a website for my home design business. The success of that site led me to start a second one featuring my photography. SBI sites are unique in their ability to generate lots of free traffic from the search engines (like Google or Yahoo). Following the SBI action guide allows anyone to create a site which will show up in online keyword or image searches. The result is lots of interest in your site - plus the ability to earn income from your site through placement of Google Adsense ads or affiliate links. And you don't need to have any special computer knowledge either - I certainly didn't know much at all when I started, yet I now own two SBI websites. Their block-by-block building system makes it very easy.

Elad Shippony is one of thousands of SBI owners who have had success with Site Build It. His story was one of many reasons that I chose to go with Site Build It. You can click on his video to hear what SBI did for him.

I am extremely pleased with SBI and highly recommend them to anyone who wants to build a great website - one which works like it's supposed to. SBI is full of many online success stories similar to Elad's. I am just very glad that my wife Karen discovered them.


Closing Thoughts.

I would love to hear what people think of this website. Please feel free to contact me using the form below and leave your comments about it. I appreciate any thoughts or input you might care to offer. I will respond to all e-mails. Thank you very much for visiting my internet photo album.

To return to the home page, click here.