About Canonshooter

Jim Erhardt has interest in a wide variety of subjects and disciplines, all of which keeps his life busy. Read Jim's blog.

Jim is a graduate of the State University of New York in Farmingdale, where he earned an Associates of Applied Science degree in Automotive Technology in 1974. The same year, he began attending Long Island University in Southampton and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1977, majoring in Geology with a Minor in Secondary Education.

During a winter session geology field trip to Mexico in 1977, Jim was introduced to photography. One of his classmates had brought along a Canon FTb SLR camera, and Jim’s life-long fascination with mechanical devices immediately piqued his interest. Upon his return home, he purchased a Minolta SR-T 201 SLR camera and began his journey into the world of photography.

Upon graduating from college, Jim spent two years in a public school system as a full-time substitute teacher. At the same time, Jim worked the summer in his father’s plumbing and heating business, just as he had every year since he was 12 years old. It was also during this time that Jim re-met a gal at a friend’s wedding he knew from high school - the Lovely Donna. Spurned in his high school days by Donna, Jim rolled the dice and asked her to dance. The Lovely Donna agreed. The rest is history.

In 1979, after marrying Donna, Jim went to work in the family's thriving plumbing and heating business full time. Though Jim had little interest in plumbing, the mechanical attributes of hot-water heating systems captured his interest. So it would be for the next 15 years that Jim would make hydronics (hot-water heating) his living, specializing in hi-tech, computer-controlled boilers and radiant heating. The affluent "East End" and "Gold Coast" of Long Island would prove to be an ideal for market for Jim and the "cutting edge hydronic heating systems" he specialized in.

In 1996, after 17 years of grueling manual labor in the field, Jim took a job with Radiant Technology of Bellport, a distributor of radiant heating products. Jim spent a year with them, providing system design and quotations for their customers. Jim also began his career in conducting contractor training seminars at this time, his teaching background and extensive experience installing radiant heating systems making him uniquely qualified and effective at doing so. In 1997, Jim was hired by Embassy Industries in Farmingdale, and was soon placed in charge of their radiant heating product line. For the next few years, Jim traveled extensively throughout the U.S. promoting the line of products and conducting seminars on radiant heating. These travels included 5 trips to Alaska, during which time the awesome beauty he saw there rekindled his interest in photography.

It was also during this time Jim began to cultivate an interest in writing. With some guidance and encouragement from his friend and well-known industry author Dan Holohan, Jim began writing articles for a few trade magazines, including Fuel Oil News. It was also during this time that Jim conceived of an electronic control to eliminate water hammer associated with fast-closing zone valves in hydronic heating systems. He met with a local electonics engineer and together designed and produced a control that did exactly that. Jim and his engineer associate were awarded a U.S. Patent for the device.

In 1998, Jim and Donna bought their first personal computer and made their first ventures on to the Internet. It was at this time Jim began learning HTML in the process of building a small personal web page. The idea of being able to share his photography with a world-wide audience was too much for Jim to pass up, so he began posting his photos on a few Internet photo critique forums. At the same time, the process of building web pages was evolving from a source of frustration to a source of enjoyment. Soon, the Lovely Donna began to complain of all of the time Jim spent doing so.

"Donna, I think all of this time and effort will eventually pay off." Indeed it would!

In late 1999, after building a basic personal web site and having spent some time on photography web sites and forums, Jim began to envision building a photography web site beyond just a personal site, a web site that would offer the best of what the typical photography site offered while avoiding the "flaming" and immature discourse so often found on those sites. He envisioned a photography web site that would have regular articles on photography combined with a professionally-run forum section for image critique and discussion. Ideas on how to go about this stewed in Jim’s mind for many months until January of 2000, when the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. While searching for domain names, Jim came across the domain naturephotographers.net. It was an immediate revelation and Jim snapped up the domain. The new photography web site that he had been envisioning was now going to come to fruition as Nature Photographers Online Magazine. Jim contacted a small group of people he had come to know from other Internet photography forums as well as some local nature photography enthusiasts and asked if they would like to contribute editorial for the new site as well as participate in the new site's forums. In April of 2000, "NPN" made its debut and has since grown into the Internet’s premier nature photography web site with over 2 million page views a month. A search on Google for "nature photography" or "wildlife photography" finds NPN at the top of the list.

Jim has since created several other photography web sites, including PhotoPortfolios.net, a web site designed to allow subscibers to display and market their work.

Other hobbies include competitive shooting, which Jim has enjoyed since the early 1980s. Jim is a NRA certified pistol instructor, and has participated in many shooting disciplines, including NRA Bullseye, Action Pistol and PPC (civilian league), High Power rifle, IPSC and most recently IDPA. Jim is a strong advocate of 2nd Amendment rights and responsible gun ownership.

Since 2000, Jim has been employed by the Slant/Fin Corporation of Greenvale, NY, one of the country's largest and most diverse manufacturers of hot-water heating equipment. With his many talents, Jim wears many hats at Slant/Fin, including contractor training as well as serving as the sales manager for Slant/Fin’s line of radiant heating products.

Jim and Donna can be reached at npn1@optonline.net.