I've always had a point and shoot camera. It was great being able to take it where ever I went and having it on hand for those magic moments. But after a while, the magic wore off and I started forgetting to take it with me. The shots at clubs and parties never turned out anyway (probably too much booze to see straight :-). I've still got lots of good shots of magic moments - I have three daughters so it is great seeing them grow through the years. Brings back lots of memories.

But... (here it is), of those thousands of pictures, only the very best make it into the family album as 4x6's. I have three head shots of my daughters blown up to letter size hanging on the wall. I like the pictures because they are of my daughters but I don't consider them professional looking shots. All the other photographs hanging on my wall were taken by professional photographers - wedding photographs and family portraits.

I know deep down inside of me, there is an artistic streak. I wanted to explore this and bring it out more so a couple of months ago, I bought a DSLR and a couple of lenses. As with any new piece of equipment, I wanted to get it out straight away and start using it. My first shots were on auto because I didn't know what else to do. What I noticed was that these shots were soooo much better quality than my p&s ones. Hey, I had blurry backgrounds (I didn't know to call it bokeh back then)! Wow, doesn't that make the subject stand out so much better?

The first point I am making here is that I am a hopeless photographer (at the moment) but my bad shots were turning out not so bad with better equipment. I don't think one can say black and white :-) that I still take bad shots - there is a scale and I have noticed a definite improvement just with using better equipment.

Now the second point is that I might be a bad photographer but I am not as bad as I was two months ago. I am learning a new art. I now have the equipment that I can learn on. I wasn't very enthused about learning to be a good photographer on my p&s because there just didn't seem the ability to do much on it. Now I am a whole lot more enthusiastic about learning; even the stuff I could have learnt on my p&s like framing the subject and different kinds of light; just because I can do so much more and I can see better results every day.

For me, a p&s is like drawing with crayons. Sure a good artist can make a nice picture... but it is a very limited piece of art. Think what you could do with not only crayons but water color, oils, charcoal, pen and ink, etc? It opens up a whole new world with DSLR.

So, a p&s for me was fine for capturing memories but now I want to do more. I want to express myself through the artform of photography. I am not an artist yet, but I am improving and I think I will be able to call myself a true photographer one day. How wonderful will it be to be able to hang my own art in my home instead of going to the gallery and looking at someone elses art? Because my art will not just be a pretty picture on the wall - it will be personal to me. How wonderful will it be to display my memories on the wall and watch other people enjoy them too instead of bringing out the family album every once in a while and boring my friends to sleep?

I carry my DSLR around in a back pack. It is always ready for me to start shooting with. I don't carry it everywhere I go but I do take it a lot of places. I don't think size matters to me that much (cameras I'm talking about :-).

So, now that I'm becoming an artist, I don't think I will ever go back to point and shoot. Why would I travel around on a bicycle when I have a Ferrari in the garage? Sure I've still got the bicycle in the back but that's only for emergencies if my Ferrari gets a flat tyre or something.