So.... this is the first post! I'll take this opportunity to explain what you'll find on this blog.
I started taking photography seriously about five years ago. It started a couple years previous with my purchase of a Canon S1 IS. It had an awesome 10X optical zoom, a flip-out screen, and it looked cool -- almost like a mini SLR. Those were literally my reasons for buying it. I spent roughly $700 on it. I felt like a pro! ...and I proceeded to use it in 100% automatic mode for the next two years I owned it.
I was aware that the camera had all sorts of controls I wasn't using, but it wasn't until two years later that realized that I would be totally wasting my money if I didn't learn how to use its manual controls. So I got a book on exposure theory.
Thus my transition to the dark side had begun.
I got hooked. Large. I couldn't stop shooting. I'd spend an afternoon just walking around the city taking pictures, with little to no success. But I was learning. And once in a while I took a picture that looked half decent.
Now I need to add in that I have a background in graphic design, and had been using Photoshop for a long time up until this point. The temptation to use Photoshop as a crutch was huge. How many times had you heard someone say "I'll fix that in Photoshop later!" I thought if I slipped into that mentality, I wouldn't really learn much about taking a great photo. So for the entire first year I spent learning photography, I put the impositiom on myself that I wouldn't take ANY photo into Photoshop, no matter how minor the tweak I thought I might make. After all, this was about getting it right in camera.
Thousands of pictures later, and the start of a meagar income from selling a few of them on Fotolia.com, I finally splurged on an SLR. I bought a Canon 20D with a Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4 lens. I continued to read books on composition, colour theory and on developing my creativity. I augmented my kit with a couple more lenses -- a Tamron 55-200mm f4-5.6 and a Sigma 50mm EX DG Macro -- which I still shoot with today all the time.
Today I still shoot lots, but admittedly not as much as I used to -- I have a 13 month old son now who commands much of my attention (and I love every second of it, and I have a million pictures of him to prove it.). [addendum from my wife: he actually commands all of HER attention...]. I've gone through a few tripods, amassed some lights and umbrellas, built a DIY background stand out of PVC pipe, and I've managed to actually get paid doing portraits of babies! I'm still learning, and this blog will chronicle my studies in photography. I'll try to make posts every few days with examples on new things I'm trying out, and I hope you will enjoy seeing me progress my skills and creativity!
Oh... and I've relaxed the Photoshop rule by now. More on that in subsequent posts.
I started taking photography seriously about five years ago. It started a couple years previous with my purchase of a Canon S1 IS. It had an awesome 10X optical zoom, a flip-out screen, and it looked cool -- almost like a mini SLR. Those were literally my reasons for buying it. I spent roughly $700 on it. I felt like a pro! ...and I proceeded to use it in 100% automatic mode for the next two years I owned it.
I was aware that the camera had all sorts of controls I wasn't using, but it wasn't until two years later that realized that I would be totally wasting my money if I didn't learn how to use its manual controls. So I got a book on exposure theory.
Thus my transition to the dark side had begun.
I got hooked. Large. I couldn't stop shooting. I'd spend an afternoon just walking around the city taking pictures, with little to no success. But I was learning. And once in a while I took a picture that looked half decent.
Now I need to add in that I have a background in graphic design, and had been using Photoshop for a long time up until this point. The temptation to use Photoshop as a crutch was huge. How many times had you heard someone say "I'll fix that in Photoshop later!" I thought if I slipped into that mentality, I wouldn't really learn much about taking a great photo. So for the entire first year I spent learning photography, I put the impositiom on myself that I wouldn't take ANY photo into Photoshop, no matter how minor the tweak I thought I might make. After all, this was about getting it right in camera.
Thousands of pictures later, and the start of a meagar income from selling a few of them on Fotolia.com, I finally splurged on an SLR. I bought a Canon 20D with a Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4 lens. I continued to read books on composition, colour theory and on developing my creativity. I augmented my kit with a couple more lenses -- a Tamron 55-200mm f4-5.6 and a Sigma 50mm EX DG Macro -- which I still shoot with today all the time.
Today I still shoot lots, but admittedly not as much as I used to -- I have a 13 month old son now who commands much of my attention (and I love every second of it, and I have a million pictures of him to prove it.). [addendum from my wife: he actually commands all of HER attention...]. I've gone through a few tripods, amassed some lights and umbrellas, built a DIY background stand out of PVC pipe, and I've managed to actually get paid doing portraits of babies! I'm still learning, and this blog will chronicle my studies in photography. I'll try to make posts every few days with examples on new things I'm trying out, and I hope you will enjoy seeing me progress my skills and creativity!
Oh... and I've relaxed the Photoshop rule by now. More on that in subsequent posts.
Here are some of my very first shots as I began taking photography seriously. All of these were shot with a Canon S1 IS, and none of these have been edited. They are as they were right out of the camera.
- jc
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