Taking Photos with Mike Matenkosky

I’ve always loved nature. As a Boy Scout, I always liked to camp and stuff. So I did some backpacking, taking pictures with point and shoot. And I’m just drawn with nature. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

I started taking pictures seriously, I’d say about 2005. I really love to take landscape pictures, some wildlife. But probably a couple of years ago, I started having troubles with my knees. And within I’d say six or eight months, I was starting to use a walker and eventually a wheelchair. I mean it just went– 

[FINGERS SNAPPING] 

–that quickly. 

So the doctors were kind of baffled, thought maybe I had Lyme disease. But they treated for that. But decided that I needed the knee replacement. So we went ahead and we had them do that. But infection set in. And they tried a couple of times to clean my right knee joint and decided to remove my knee and fused it. 

I was in a wheelchair. I’d say for over a year in the wheelchair. My knees hurt so bad that I quit moving my left leg. So it was bent in 90 degrees. And I’m like, I need to get out of the wheelchair. So they decided to just remove the left knee, fused it straight. 

I was in a cast for a couple months. And now I’m walking again. It took a few months to kind of walk with the walker and a cane. So now I generally don’t use a cane. I use my tripod if I have to. And it kind of works for me. 

If I can get there without having to walk so far. So a lot of my shots are right by the road or maybe if I can sit down and kind of scoot down to the bank and take a picture. 

I love it. And as I grow out here, we’ll see what happens. Maybe I’ll be the next Ansel Adams, or Galen Rowell, or something like that. 

[MUSIC PLAYING]