About

To be honest, photography has not always interested me. When I was younger, my least favorite school subject was typically art. I suppose I was more of a left brained individual, preferring logic, math, science, and critical thinking to art, creativity, and imagination. Fortunately, something changed in my twenties and I began to really value visually pleasing aesthetics and the emotions felt from within when taking in different forms of art.

But that didn’t mean that I had a camera glued to my face from that point forward. Although I received my first camera as Christmas gift in ’97 (a basic Advantix APS film type), I really didn’t use it a whole lot besides shots of cars, friends, pets, etc. Three years later, while at community college I borrowed my parent’s Minolta SLR and took an introductory photography course. Primarily because I needed to fulfill a general ed art requirement, secondarily because it seemed somewhat interesting. It was there that I was exposed (pun😬) to the technical side of photography: focus, shutter speed, aperture, B&W film developing, etc. This fed my left brain tendencies. The more right brain, creative aspects of the form; subject selection, composition, balance, viewpoint, etc. were more difficult (and still are). I would estimate that the quality of my photographs were consistently below that of nearly all of my classmates😧 But, this course brought me in touch with photography as an art, beyond simply a method of recording moments in life. I was exposed to the work of a few accomplished photographers (Ansel Adams, for one of course). Unfortunately, following this class I put the camera down, but I was now much more aware of photography in my daily life and could now better appreciate what goes into a compelling photo.

Every year following this photography class, I picked up the annual Ansel Adams calendar. I really believe that starring at those monthly photos on my wall helped me begin to understand the creative side of this art form. I wasn’t actively taking many photos, but I was consistently viewing & thinking about them. The next few years brought a couple of digital point-and-shoot cameras and plenty of uninteresting photos. In late '09, an attempt to better figure out what I was doing and improve my technique brought me to purchase Bryan Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure.” This book really sparked something and in short time I ended up with a Nikon D90 kit, 50mm prime, a tripod, and Adobe Lightroom.

Plenty of bad photos followed, but I began to capture a few here and there that made me feel inspired. The capable camera within my iPhone was a great help...insert that quote about the best camera being the one with you, right😉 I also kept reading photography books, picked up a few more lenses, and reviewed images that caught my eye to better understand what made them great. Life and competing interests limited my photography time, but I began to consider myself as a photography geek of sorts even if I didn’t get out and shoot as much as I wanted.

Early in 2017, I picked up a Nikon D5500 and renewed my focus to improve. To that end, I logged back into this site and began to upload photos and join groups, to further grow as a photographer. Big thanks to all the others here that share, like, follow, and comment in this space…so much inspiration👍😀