Collectors are a strange but driven lot. We are passionate about what we do and tend to think others should feel the same. I hesitate to say “obsessed,” but it is not far off the mark in describing hardcore collectors. Since 1976, I have collected, studied, researched, and written about antique American photography. My initial interest was Civil War photographs taken in the southern states of the old Confederacy. For over three decades I researched images and published a calendar featuring Confederate photography. As the years passed, my interest changed somewhat, and I began to focus more on the history (from the 1840s up to 1900) of my home state of Texas. Soon it became obvious to me that early Texas photography should be the focus of my collecting. (Excerpt from the book.)