Have you ever seen an amazing photo that just speaks to you: "WOW, that is so cool"? I have. I see them... all the time. I love, love, LOVE photos. Any photos, all photos, but mostly artsy photos. I see amazing photography opportunities ALL the time. I wish I could put onto digital media what I see in my head. But, it isn't that easy & it takes time ( a lot of time) to learn.
I guess photography is an obsession that I have inherited. My Mom loved photography, my Dad loved photography (and even did a lot of his own developing). I love photography. I can't even begin to explain it. But when I see a photo done well, it is like all is right with the world (kind of like the feeling you get when the house is clean & all the chores are done)... just right. I began learning as a little girl in 4-H (yup, I am from the Midwest). My Mom had a great old school Canon camera, I can't even tell you the model number b/c it was stolen when I was in high school and that is long before I paid attention to that kind of thing. I cried when that camera was gone. So we got a newfangled model called a Canon "Rebel"; it had all these strange settings. I was too busy doing high school stuff to ever bother learning these strange settings. I am an old school girl, you set your own F-stop and shutter speed.
Ironically, I have really forgotten what I learned when I was younger. Mind you, I was never very good, but I had an idea of what I was doing. I have never taken a photography class ever. I just read.
When my son was born last year, I had the sudden urge to capture those moments, those perfect pictures I could see in my head. All my husband and I had was a Canon Powershot A610, which is really not a bad point and shoot. It even let me set the shutterspeed & F-stop as well as some ISO & white balance settings. It was a good place to start learning, after all, I knew NOTHING about digital photography. I learned on film, I was sure it was a whole new ball game.
I was wrong. The basic principles are all the same. What did change is AWESOME! No longer do I have to carry a notebook w/ me recording what settings I did to what number photograph. It is all embeded in the image. What did change for me was the element of "processing" the photos. I never did any of my own film developing, so this is a whole new realm to me. Photoshop... here I come. In my "spare" time (as a full time working mom, I don't have much "spare" time) I try to #1) learn more about the basic principles of good photography & #2) learn how the heck to do anything in photoshop. To be honest, #2 has really been the hold up in my learning. It just takes so much time to learn photoshop. So I tell myself, that is just another reason to get the shot right to begin with. But there are so many neat things that photoshop can do.
So thus I begin my blog of my picture project. In the next few days I hope to post a few pictures of what I started out with (I'd love to put up so photos I took when I was younger, but I just don't have the time or desire to fight with the scanner) and where I am now (with my SHINY new Nikon D90 camera, thank you tax return!). It takes a little time: 1) to decide on the photo, 2) to resize the image, 3) to watermark the image so some creep doesn't steal my photo. It doesn't seem like it would take long, but I always go off on tangents, so 2 hours later, I only have 2 or those 3 things done b/c I looked up a link to do something like writing a macro or whatever.
This project is directly inspired by my husband letting me spend way too much money on a new "real" camera. My new baby, the Nikon D90 which is a mid-range DSLR. I only have my 2 kit lenses and a generic flash, no speedlight, no backdrops, not really even a trustworthy tripod. It is amazing how much photography equipment stuff costs. I am saving up. Seeing as how my husband & I are graduate students (and parents to boot) money is tight, very tight. I felt very evil even contemplating getting a camera, there are so many other things we should spend the money on (like paying off those lovely student loans!). I hope someday to be able to make a living from the camera (or at least have it contribute a little to our income). I have a lot of learning to do...................
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