Meet Alice Hamilton, born and reared in Connecticut.  Her educational background includes a master’s degree in history and education, knowledge she used to teach school in Germany and her home state.

Hamilton has also lived in Omaha, Neb, was married and had three stepsons.  She worked for IBM for four years, the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition for nine years and is presently a freelance grant writer.  She chose the desert in 1990 after sampling different communities.

Her interest in photography began when her parents gave her an Asahi Pentax as a gift for college graduation along with a few bells and whistles. 

“The Asahi was a single lens reflex basic camera,” she explained.  “I also had a light meter, tripod and flash attachment.  It was easy to adjust F-stops and shutter speeds.  Over the years I have gone from taking lots of pictures to periods where I’ve taken none.”

At the present time Hamilton uses a Canon Elan with a standard lens, a telephoto 100-300 zoom and an extension tube.  Even though she has no digital camera, she attends the digital classes and just purchased Adobe Photoshop CS so she can make changes on scanned photos.

“Basically I like photos of meditative kinds of experiences, which includes landscapes, flowers and animals,” she said.  “Photography is a hobby that I’d like to know more about.  I want to improve artistically and technically.”