While working on my web site recently and debating on freshening up what images were available to purchase there, I accidentally deleted about half the content, making the decision for myself without trying.
My files are well organized on my computer, so its not a complete disaster, but it is a good bit of work going through 11 years of images and choosing what to include.
And its been interesting to journey though my work, from beginning to end, and see how my style has changed and grown and held on to is roots.
My first camera, besides a disposable one, was the HP Photosmart C200. It was a 1MP point and shoot digital camera with a max ISO of 100, 2x digitial zoom, an f/2.8 lens, a max shutter speed of 1/500 sec, and a built in flash. I purchased it at Sam’s Club for around $100 in 2005.
I’m the nostalgic type, so I still have that camera AND the images I took with it. It is, after all, what led me to what I do now. Of those images, you may still see one of them from time to time. “The Underbridge”, the architectural image shown below, was later scanned, enlarged and digitally enhanced so it could be printed at higher resolutions.
Later that year I updated to a Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200, another point and shoot camera, but with extra bells and whistles with 8mp, a larger ISO range, optical zoom, and more manual control.
That camera got a much harder workout. For two years I squeezed everything I could out of that camera. In 2007, which was its last year as my main camera, I was out on the trails with it nearly every day. There are still photos from this camera available in my gallery and at my shows because it was the one that helped hone my hobby into a profession.
After the Konica Minolta, I was more than ready to upgrade to a manual DSLR. I purchased the Canon 40D with the kit lens.
This was the first image I took with it on October 8, 2007 at 6:44 AM.
The 40D was soon joined by more lenses and accessories…and then vintage film cameras, so I could learn more of the basics that had been skipped while learning composition and eye with my point and shoots. As a self-taught photographer, I learned a lot of things backwards, and still have a hard time with technical terms (in the same way I am more likely to tell you to go to the 3rd green house and turn towards the school house, than I am to tell you drive a 1/4 mile and turn west), but I’m comfortable with it.
I value the way I learned. I’m an artist. Discovering how I want to make art is part of the process. I now use a Canon 5D Mark III. Occasionally hurting my brain naming f-stops and aperture rather than changing the settings towards the school house and darker…occasionally still part of my process.
;-0