my photography history

 Some of my earliest photography memories are of my dad. Always working on something. 2 or 3 cameras (all the same brand) in pieces on the dining room table. Trying to make a good one out of 3 bad ones. I don't remember his pro-quality one too well, but, I do remember seeing it once in a while. Once me and my brother expressed an interest in taking pictures, he set us each up with a Brownie. Of course, there were more modern cameras then, but, I think he liked the idea that we were learning on the same type of camera he learned on. The day that stands out most is when he taught us how to load them and we went downtown. We could take pictures of anything we wanted. Once we shot our rolls, we got back home and processed the film. I remember seeing all that equipment, before, but, we never got to use it. Then we got to do it all...darkroom, enlarger,chemicals...it was awesome. The original 1 hour photo!
   When I got to high school I was glad to get into photography class. Same thing. Chemicals, darkroom. My dad wasn't in the best shape to be shooting anymore, so, I took it up. He gave me a Minolta 35mm that he put together and that was my 1st real camera. I fell out of love with it, because of the pain in the ass of knowing what all the settings do.
  After my son was born, in '88, I didn't want to fiddle with settings, so, I bought a Canon sureshot...point and shoot! I probably used that thing for 10 years! I'll pull it out once in a while and shoot a few with it. The film in it is about 15 years old. One day, I'll turn it in.
   When digital cameras became affordable, i got this kodak.

After 2 or 3 cheapo cameras, my daughter was born. The digital point, shoot and download era begins. Just like the old days, you got instant results. My wife, noticing how much I'm liking the cross between pictures and technology, gets me a beautiful camera for christmas. A sony cybershot. It shoots video and everything. It did, and does the job to this day. This time around, I was able to take the time to really learn how to use this thing. If you read my earlier woodworking post, you saw the scroll saw portraits that I cut out. Until this point, I was working with existing pictures. Some good light and some bad. I thought, if I took the portraits, I could control the lighting. So I started youtubing and buying books on the subject of portraits. Wow. there are a million people out there that are dying to tell you all about it! Although the sony is a great point and shoot, I saw it's limits when it came to serious (kinda') portraits.

First came lighting. I didn't realize how inexpensive it was to experiment with umbrellas (10 bucks), softboxes(30 bucks), and remote triggers. Yea...it's all cheap, but you find out if it's the right direction to head in, before you spend too much. There are countless resources to find this stuff cheap. I finally came across +David Hobby's blog www.strobist.com. Now, I know these techniques aren't new, but, they were just never presented to me this way before.

 One year, on thanksgiving, I brought an umbrella and a few cheap speedlights to thanksgiving dinner. I figured everyone was dressed up, anyway, why not try some portraits? My plan was to load all the thanksgiving pictures into a digital photo album I was going to get my in-laws for Christmas. Here are some results. As you can see, I knew nothing about poses and really over did it on the photoshop. But, live and learn.

After discovering off-camera flash, I realized I needed a more controllable camera, you know...a hot shoe and all the manual settings. So, I bought a re-furbished canon xsi. Man, this thing rocks. I found real excitement, to be able to take high quality pictures of my daughter, anytime I wanted. Believe me, I have thousands...literally.

  

 

I also started learning how to do a decent job of framing and matte cutting.

 

I feel that I have a pretty good command of what I'm tyring to do. But, there's always room for improvement.

I like to think that this is something I would like to do professionally, but, if I did it all the time, It may not be as personally rewarding. I'd love to find out ,though.

Here is a link to my photostream on flickr. Lately, I've been doing a lot of live music shooting. Most of it is done with my canon t4i. I really love these 2 cameras. But, i still use the point and shoots all the time. Even my phone camera...I just can't get enough.

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