James Berg has been playing with cameras since he was 10 or 13 years old and he never really stopped.

After quitting high school in 1946 because he was flunking English class, he joined the U.S. Navy. The Navy sent him to journalism school in Chicago. Berg learned some photography there as well as how to write a story.

He went to Pearl Harbor and was on several ships writing stories for the Fleet Hometown Newspaper, based in Norfolk, Va., on what the people were doing in the Navy.

After Berg finished his time in the Navy, he decided to follow his love for photography and attend the Ray School of Photography in Chicago. After graduating about 1950, he worked for Hockett Studio, a portrait studio in Albert Lea that is no longer in existence.

A few years later he left for South Dakota and later Iowa, working for other photography studios and on Jan. 1, 1960, this photographer decided it was his turn to have his own place. He opened up Berg Studio and Camera Shop in Fairmont. There, he took all types of portraits in an elaborate studio space with all types of backgrounds with lights that hung from the ceiling.

“Back then, you didn’t just shoot pictures,” Berg said, “you created them.”

He has won a number of photography awards, including a National Award from the Professional Photographers of America for building a judging booth that is still in use today. He was also the president of the Minnesota Professional Photographer’s Association twice.

Berg owned and ran his studio for 25 years until he sensed something was changing. Business wasn’t good, he said. At the time he didn’t know that digital was coming, but he knew something was coming. So after owning the store for all those years, he closed the business and moved to Texas, near where his children were living.

He worked at a photo lab and got to learn that end of the photography business, which was good for Berg, because he likes to know about how everything works.

“I get excited about everything,” he said.

After living in Texas for a number of years, he decided to return to his hometown of Albert Lea in 2006, “cause it was home,” he said.

“I’ve had a good time up here since I’ve came back.”

He said in Texas he had friends, but here in Albert Lea they were real, old friends.

Even though he has retired from the photography studio world, he still loves to take pictures and is interested in technology.

Berg bought one of the first digital cameras to come out, a Sony camera that stored the pictures on a floppy disc. He now uses a digital SLR camera, the popular Canon Rebel and likes it quite well.

He takes pictures each year of the Albert Lea High School reunion for the class of 1946.

Age: 81

Address: 713 First Ave S. Albert Lea

Livelihood: photographer

Family: sons Jon and Robert and daughter Susan

Interesting fact: He enjoys genealogy and is a full-blooded Norwegian

The spunky Berg loves technology, after all, he said, he has had a computer since the 70s and he has had one ever since. He is even in the process of putting together a new computer. He even has his own Web site where he puts lots of pictures of different events he goes to around town. The Web site is dedicated to the people of Albert Lea and on it you can find his photos of happenings from things like the 3rd of July Parade, lefse making and the Big Island Bar-B-Q. His photos can be found at www.allalbertlea.com.

If you see Berg around town, you may just get your photo taken with a smile. After all, he said, he just likes to have fun with photography.