Photography and me...
I have always been very geeky when it comes to gadgets. My dad had a Minolta SLR when I was growing up, but I wasn’t allowed to play with it. I took a B&W photography class in high school with the hope of being able to use it for a semester.
I completely misjudged what the class was about and I couldn’t have been happier. It was the first time I wasn’t taking pictures to “capture a moment”. I learned how to look at life from different angles and different perspectives. It opened my eyes to a whole new side of photography. The class ended up being one of my favorites from high school.
After the class, I didn’t really do much photography. I wouldn’t carry a big camera with me and I didn’t have a compact one. I did start looking at the pictures in magazines much differently than I used to. I loved coming across those pictures that just “popped” at me and made me pause. I never really understood why it had that affect on me, and to some degree I still don’t.
When I was at AIT in the army (Advanced Individual Training; effectively where you learn your job), I got suckered into buying a manual focus film SLR at a low monthly rate but high overall cost. Having to pay all of the development costs, I was timid with experimenting. I effectively used it like a point and shoot camera with a lot of functions. When my vision started to get less clear, I noticed that most of my pictures were out of focus. I got tired of paying to develop out of focus prints, so I pretty much put the camera away and never used it again.
I was given a Canon Digital Elph for Christmas one year. I loved the fact that it was compact and portable. I started taking pictures again and was introduced to the instant gratification of digital.
When I moved to San Francisco early 2006, I fell in love with all of the architecture and scenery. For my birthday that year, I decided to venture into digital SLR’s. At the time drinking was a big “hobby” of mine (hence the nickname), and I wanted something more productive. After researching for a month or so, I decided to buy the Nikon D70s. It was between Nikon & Canon, and at the price point I was looking at the Nikon had more hand controls (less digging through menus). The day I bought it, I charged the battery and walked home up Market St. from work. Even though I had seen all of the buildings before, it amazed me how different they looked through the eye piece of the SLR.
Since the camera was digital with full autofocus, I had no fear of taking pictures. I just started off with everything on automatic. I would just click away and then look over the pictures to see what I could do better. When my pictures all came out blue, I learned about proper white balance and the affect it has on the overall color tone. Using post processing to fix the mistakes at the camera would teach me what I should have done before I clicked.
I would go out and take 100 pictures of one church just to see which angles looked better in the light I had available. I must admit, I look at my bad pictures infinitely more than my good ones. I always think “what could I have done better?” This effectively became my training process.
I’ve been dabbling in different types of photography techniques, both at the camera and in the post. I’m starting to structure myself and get more organized. It’s hard to match free time with opportunities, so I’m trying to organize as much of the post processing as possible. I listen to a couple of photography podcasts (TWIP & StudioLighting.Net) and just enrolled in a self-paced photography course to help strengthen my technical skills. I recently invested in some gear to start playing with multiple off camera flashes.
So that’s basically where I am now. I’m just focused on learning and having fun while hoping something ends up being marketable enough to get more glass (lenses).