Keeping up with the Joneses

Since getting my dSLR camera a few weeks ago I've been having a lot of fun taking pictures, but what's more, I've discovered how much more I have to learn with all the new technology jargon and lingo and hoopla. SOOC and RAW, post process, etc. are all terms I'm having to learn with respect to my camera. It's a bit of a learning curve right now, but I'm learning to (ok, re-learning) tweak my photos before posting them...slowly but surely anyway. It's one thing when you're paid to take pictures and another when you have to remind yourself to take the camera out to use it! It's been just over four years since I decided to return to the world of "hobbyist photographer" and leave the paid gig part of it out of the picture. Anyway, I'm going to try to incorporate my pictures into my posts and maybe play around with them a little before posting them. My page layout is flooded with *so* many different kinds of things, so this is a small attempt to get it more organized - behind the scenes anyway.


So, how is this keeping up with the Joneses?? Well, when you post as frequently as I do and get to know all these other lovely ladies who blog and photograph it tends to keep me focused and on top of the things I want to accomplish. If it weren't for Emily's blog (yeah, a shout out for ya!), I wouldn't have gained a renewed interest in photography. I had been wanting a new digital camera for almost three years, but since I put the professional thing away, it didn't make a lot of sense to buy a new camera, particularly since they can get pretty costly. After reading that thread on BBC though, I made it a priority and started researching and asking questions. For my level of "expertise" it made sense to go with the Canon 40D. I opted out of getting the flash for the time being and whenever possible I like to use natural light, but I also have my Bogen with my Sunpak 622 on standby for those more "portrait" type pictures I want to capture. It's been a lot of fun rediscovering my passion. I am loving working with photos in PhotoShop. I'll never forget the guy who showed me how to use it. His name is Dave Rossman and he was the photographer in my small hometown. It was my first photojournalism internship - this would have been back in 1995. Hard to believe that's been almost thirteen years ago!! I had a lot of fun learning about photography from a computer standpoint - I even remember the old school negative scanner and having to use the lupe to find the "best" negative to scan in. It took so long to scan, it made more sense to pick one using the light table and the lupe first.