So, I am becoming a photographer. Some people would say that I am a photographer. I guess it depends on your definition of being a photographer.
Today, I just wanted to chat a little about where I started and where I am now, which is hopefully nowhere near where I will be later.
I started with a 110 camera. For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, 110 was a type of film. The camera wasn't great quality, but it was sturdy and I didn't ruin the film like I might have if I had opened a 35 mm. I was, after all, only a kid. I was about 7 or 8 years old when I got my first camera. I took crazy shots of everything. I had bags of film to be developed. I collected cans all year long to get enough money to take the film in to the local Thrifty to get it developed. I didn't want to spend the extra money on 1 hour development, so I waited weeks to get it back. That extra money was more film money.
I loved getting all of those envelopes filled with my truly terrible photos back. I would pour over them studying each one. Trying to remember what I was thinking when I took the photo. Even back then, I was somewhat obsessed with taking pictures of flowers.
I had boxes and boxes of the negatives, for just in case I wanted to get new copies made.
Then, by high school, I had graduated up to a pink 35 mm camera. It had a built in flash. I thought it was the craziest technology I had ever seen. Oh, the difficulty I had at first with that 35 mm film. Losing an entire roll because I forgot to wind it. Double exposures. It not quite winding on correctly. But like all things, with practice I caught on. My photos were better, both because I was older and because the more expensive film delivered better photos. People I didn't know started commenting on how I had a "natural eye" and that I should start taking classes. I was in high school and was focused on my college track. I didn't take classes. I was in all honors classes instead.
To give a basic timeline, by my sophomore year in college, I finally had a cell phone. It was a Nokia...the Nokia. I continued to use 35 mm cameras. I really get anything better than a point and shoot with a flash for a while, quite a while. I wanted a better camera. I wanted a "good" camera. I knew people that had a camera with all the bells and whistles. They used it to take snap shots like I did. I was so jealous. I knew that those cameras had options I couldn't even dream of, and they weren't even using them. But besides the cost of the camera itself, film was too expensive for me to be able to just play around and hope. And the wait time would have made it hard for me to remember exactly what I had done so that I could duplicate it. It honestly made no sense for me to get one.
Then came the glorious age of digital cameras! "Real" photographers scoffed at them. They said they weren't any good. That they couldn't do what a good film camera could. But the could do something that a film camera couldn't. They allowed you to see your photo instantly. They allowed you to know if it was a good shot, or a bad shot. If it wasn't any good, you could simply delete it and move on! My mind was blown wide open!
When my last inexpensive 35 mm camera broke, I went searching for a replacement. Those were the days before Google and Amazon. I lived about an hour and a half from anything anyone would call civilization. Great for photography, not great for comparison shopping. I hopped into my car ready for a day "in the City". Every store I went to had both 35 mm and digital cameras. I shocked to discover that for just a few dollars more, I could buy a Canon digital camera instead of a 35 mm. I was skeptical. Finally, a sales person was like, "well, with this camera you have to buy the camera, buy the film, pay for the film to be developed, hope the pictures came out ok, and then store all of the negatives and pictures. With this camera, you buy this camera and a memory card. You can see the pictures immediately. If you don't like them, you delete them. If you do like them, you can just use the cable that comes with the camera to put them on your computer." Back then, the internet wasn't a huge thing yet, so all of this awesome cloud storage didn't exist. I was worried about not having a hard copy. I wasn't sold. I went to Thrifty and was talking to the guy at the photo counter. He showed me how to connect my camera to their all new "state of the art" system. He explained that instead of having to develop all of the film and pay for every picture I took, the new system let me order only the ones I wanted. That sold me. I bought the camera.
I went home. I played around with it. This one had zoom and red eye reduction!!! Oh my, how amazing my world was now. I took hundreds of pictures a day, I kept maybe 1. When taking important pictures I could tell right away whether or not they were good, and then we would retake them if they needed to be retaken. No more hoping that memories were properly documented. Be still my photography loving heart!!!
After using that camera until the color was wearing off, I decided I wanted to "up" my photography game, so I bought a camera that wasn't quite a dSLR but wasn't just a point and shoot.
To say that I had no idea how to use it is an understatement. Luckily, since the internet was a fairly untapped market still, it came with a giant book on how to use it. I couldn't believe what this camera could do! So many shooting options. Aquarium, firework, action, portrait, animal, beach, cloudy sky. Every selection made the picture look different...then I discovered the Macro section. I read that section over and over. I played with my camera in macro mode. I realized how much I adored getting up close and personal with my subjects. This is the camera that took me from being a person with a camera into being a photographer.
Several of the pictures on my website were taken with this camera. As I got more comfortable with the auto settings, and as the internet started to become more mainstream, I read on how to use this specific camera more effectively. Then, I learned about photo editing. Of course I edit my photos. Even the great film photographers edited their photos. It is how you take a good picture and make it great, or how you take a great picture and make it exceptional.
Sometime later, smart phones made their way to the market. With them, came the ability to take digital quality photos. I do take a lot, and excessive amount, of photos with my phone. They are almost all of my cats. The picture of my Canon Powershot is taken with my cell phone so that I could throw it onto my blog.
But, a year and a half ago, I finally did it. I splurged. I bought my dSLR on a preChristmas sale. I had NO CLUE what to do with any of it. I still hadn't learned photography language with the Powershot, I didn't need to. Although I could have changed all of the setting on it, it wasn't intuitive, nor easy. My Canon Rebel t6 was clearly designed to be taken out of auto. I started scouring the internet for resources. Man, are a lot of those resources hard to read and pretentious. I finally found some resources that made it all make sense. Click it Up a Notch and Digital Photography School were my jumping off point. Both websites explain things in a very user friendly way. I have now purchased several lens kits, tripods, and filters for my camera. I am still studying all the time to try and improve.
Overall, though, I just can't believe where I am today, compared to where I was as a tiny little 8 year old with a 110 camera.
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