A Picture Perfect Journey

This is a picture of my first "real" camera.  I had point-and-shoot (film) cameras before this, but getting this camera was absolutely amazing!  My dad has always been interested in the art of photography and is a very talented photographer (way better than me) who rarely ever takes a picture.  The few pictures he took of us as kids are professional quality.  My mom, whose talents lie outside of the artistic areas, always took a lot of snapshots which are fun to look back on, but no one would ever want to frame those.  I like to think that I have a decent eye for composing photographs and I take pictures all the time, so I guess in this regard I'm a perfect combination of my parents.

My dad served in the army during the Vietnam war and this Canon camera went with him.  He doesn't like to talk about it very much so the pictures he took over there aren't on display.  But I have seen his photo album once before and he has some amazing, and some disturbing shots; sometimes both in the same picture.  I think the first time I saw those photos as a teenager was when I realized that war wasn't just some abstract concept and that it was actually pretty horrific.

When my dad recognized my budding interest in photography, he gave me this camera.  I got the impression that it was kind of his first baby and it was a BIG deal and a very special gift that he gave to me.  I was a very good student because I was so interested in learning how to take good photos like my dad.  I actually kept a journal in my camera bag and recorded the f-stop and shutter speed on every picture that I took.  I also had the ISO recorded, but that was for an entire roll of film, this was WAY before digital cameras were available.  I don't know how many rolls of film I went through.  Back then I had to be very careful about the shot I took as there wasn't any delete button, and both purchasing and developing film were pretty expensive, especially on my limited budget.

The camera had an external flash, but it was broken and we couldn't get it fixed for a reasonable price, so I only ever took pictures outdoors with it.  I had so much fun with that camera.  For someone who was really good at math and science, this felt like one of my only real creative outlets.  I've since come to realize that you can also be very creative in math and science, but unfortunately that's not really the way those subjects were taught in school, so I had to figure that out on my own much later.  Here are a few of the pictures that I was particularly proud of.

At the Uncompahgre plateau

A wild primrose flower (slightly underexposed)

I pretty much stopped using the Canon after my daughter was born because I needed to be able to take pictures indoors with a flash.  So for several years I was back to a point-and-shoot camera.  I still didn't have a digital camera then so my daughter's baby pictures are almost exclusively on film.  Luckily by that point I could order a DVD when I got the pictures developed so we do have some digital record of her infant years.  I think she was nearly 3 before I got a digital point-and-shoot camera.

A couple of years ago I got my current camera, a Nikon D7000 for which I saved my pennies for about a year (yes, as a grown adult with a husband and children I still have to save my money to make big purchases).  I was so anxious to get started with it and I was also a bit rusty on manual photography so I set it on the automatic mode and started taking pictures.  This camera  takes wonderful pictures.  I took the picture of the Canon above with the Nikon (ironic?).  But now that I've taken the time to reacquaint myself with the exposure triangle and switched over to the manual mode I think the pictures are even better, and I feel more ownership of them.  When I was using the automatic mode I thought I was doing a pretty good job with composition, which is extremely important.  But there's something tremendously satisfying about choosing your own exposure settings and seeing a nice photo.  

So I've come full circle with my photography twice.  While I do have other creative outlets these days, I still really enjoy capturing a beautiful scene to share with others.  One of my favorite things to do with my pictures now is to give photo gifts.  This is especially appreciated by parents and grandparents, so my sisters-in-law, parents, and parents-in-law have all been on the receiving end of these gifts.  It feels good to know that the gift is unique and not something they could get anywhere else.  Most of my pictures are good, a few are mediocre, and an even smaller few are remarkable.  But I'll keep working at it and getting better, after all, fun is frequently found in the journey.