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Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Introductory Notes
My wife has been bugging encouraging me to share my talents. Not having any real talents, I will share one of my hobbies with you - photography. This blog won't attempt any real insight into my life. Really it is only intended to offer weekly glimpses into moments of my life. As I am not a writer, or a reader for that matter, aside from brief commentary, I intend that this blog will be dominated by photos that I have taken.
I've always loved gadgets (the physical kind... not the "look my blog can violate copyrights and play annoying music" kind of gadgets). I also love technology. As consumer digital photography entered its infancy, I was definitely interested by this high-tech gadgetry. As a high school graduation present I opted to get my first digital camera. The camera was a 1 MP Kodak, purchased at a popular retailer in 2001. Sadly, a hard drive failure wiped out most of the pictures acquired from that camera, yet the camera was invaluable in the development of my new obsession. The camera was slow, bulky, and had very poor (by today's - 2011- standards) image quality, but I loved the camera, and I began to love photography.
After my first year of college I left the country for a couple years on an LDS mission, taking with me a 35mm film camera - just to record basic memories. The Kodak was too larger, and depended on memory and batteries... both of which may be hard to come by in third-world countries. Towards the middle of my mission I was partnered with a missionary who had gotten a new Sony digital camera, which I enjoyed playing with during the evenings and preparation days that we had. After visiting a local mall, and seeing the next iteration of Sony digital camera development, I knew that I would have to get one for myself. As soon as I could, I did.
The appeal of a digital camera, to me, is that images are free. I've been bred as a tightwad, and trained as an engineer, so I would always think about how much a photo will cost me whenever I took a film-based image. Digital has allowed me to relax about taking images. I can play with light or composition. I can make images that are worthless, or can take a hundred photos of something worthwhile and later determine which image is the "best". Digital photography has allowed me to create without inhibitions.
My beloved second camera died after about three years of very heavy use, and I knew that I would need a replacement soon. The only problem with that is that when I got the first camera, it was top-of-the-line. The second camera was also the best the industry offered at the time (without spending 10s of thousands on a camera), so I knew that my spoiled camera preferences would be satisfied with nothing more than the best (within reason). This was a problem because I was recently married when my second camera died... and finances were tight. However, after two years of waiting (and after two very large tax "refunds") I was finally in a position to get the camera and lenses that I had been wanting.
Now having acquired a fairly serious camera system, I was ready to create my vision. This blog will feature those images that I feel fulfill the vision that I have. The images won't be necessarily from the preceding week, but I feel that this blog will encourage me to work harder at making share-worthy photography. The quality of the photos may not be what you might consider "pleasing", but my motivation is capturing the beautiful world that God has created for us, and sharing what I feel is particularly noteworthy. It is not meant to be comprehensive in any way... it is simply sharing a moment of the week.
I've always loved gadgets (the physical kind... not the "look my blog can violate copyrights and play annoying music" kind of gadgets). I also love technology. As consumer digital photography entered its infancy, I was definitely interested by this high-tech gadgetry. As a high school graduation present I opted to get my first digital camera. The camera was a 1 MP Kodak, purchased at a popular retailer in 2001. Sadly, a hard drive failure wiped out most of the pictures acquired from that camera, yet the camera was invaluable in the development of my new obsession. The camera was slow, bulky, and had very poor (by today's - 2011- standards) image quality, but I loved the camera, and I began to love photography.
After my first year of college I left the country for a couple years on an LDS mission, taking with me a 35mm film camera - just to record basic memories. The Kodak was too larger, and depended on memory and batteries... both of which may be hard to come by in third-world countries. Towards the middle of my mission I was partnered with a missionary who had gotten a new Sony digital camera, which I enjoyed playing with during the evenings and preparation days that we had. After visiting a local mall, and seeing the next iteration of Sony digital camera development, I knew that I would have to get one for myself. As soon as I could, I did.
The appeal of a digital camera, to me, is that images are free. I've been bred as a tightwad, and trained as an engineer, so I would always think about how much a photo will cost me whenever I took a film-based image. Digital has allowed me to relax about taking images. I can play with light or composition. I can make images that are worthless, or can take a hundred photos of something worthwhile and later determine which image is the "best". Digital photography has allowed me to create without inhibitions.
My beloved second camera died after about three years of very heavy use, and I knew that I would need a replacement soon. The only problem with that is that when I got the first camera, it was top-of-the-line. The second camera was also the best the industry offered at the time (without spending 10s of thousands on a camera), so I knew that my spoiled camera preferences would be satisfied with nothing more than the best (within reason). This was a problem because I was recently married when my second camera died... and finances were tight. However, after two years of waiting (and after two very large tax "refunds") I was finally in a position to get the camera and lenses that I had been wanting.
Now having acquired a fairly serious camera system, I was ready to create my vision. This blog will feature those images that I feel fulfill the vision that I have. The images won't be necessarily from the preceding week, but I feel that this blog will encourage me to work harder at making share-worthy photography. The quality of the photos may not be what you might consider "pleasing", but my motivation is capturing the beautiful world that God has created for us, and sharing what I feel is particularly noteworthy. It is not meant to be comprehensive in any way... it is simply sharing a moment of the week.
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