“Which one of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” ~Imogen Cunningham.
There is truth in this. When I started my photography journey, I thought that people were innately good at it. People would tell me, “You have a great eye.” I didn’t know that I was using very little skill and lacked the knowledge to truly take a photograph. What I was doing, was called “spray and pray.” Yes, I was shooting my camera in automatic mode, pointing and clicking. I had zero knowledge about my camera settings, lighting, composition, color theory, editing, texture, and storytelling with an image…and how to use it all together to make an artistic photograph with a visual intention.
It started when my two boys were 1 and 6 years of age. I loved photographs of them but could not take a quality photo to save my life. I went to a local photographer and spent about $800 on a portrait session and a few prints. This was a lot of money for me! I couldn’t believe how much it cost. Not long after that I bought my very first DSLR camera and a few cheap lenses.
So, the journey began. I learned the exposure triangle and made many mistakes in exposure and the wrong settings for the look I was intending to get. Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings were what made up the corners of this triangle and trying to get them “balanced” to create an image that was exposed properly. I started intentionally choosing those settings in Manual Mode to create an image that was in my mind’s eye. Manipulating motion with shutter speed, depth of field with aperture, and graininess with ISO. Then choosing your subject/story, and learning how to use environment, light, and composition to accentuate that subject/story. The lessons continued and continued. The more I photographed, and studied photography the more I liked the work I was producing.
My children were models, though at times reluctantly. When my children got ipods, they used the cameras and we would go on photographic treasure hunts. There would be a list of items to photograph and we would go on a hunt for those items. When we found the treasures, we would photograph them, and mark it off our list. It allowed them to join me and share in the joy of photography.
It’s been over 10 years now since that first DSLR, and I am still learning new things. I’ve learned that this is a journey rather than a destination. I am always trying to improve and learn new things related to this wonderful craft. I am appreciative of every teacher, workshop, YouTube channel, and lesson that I’ve learned from along the way. The one thing that I think is really the most important aspect of improving is to shoot often, and really critique your work. Study the work of the masters (especially one that you are drawn to their images), and note what makes that photo work, and implement that into your own work. Shoot then critique and shoot again.
In light of this, I am doing a 52-week challenge to push myself AND force me to revisit the basics. If you’d like to join me, please feel free to join my private Facebook group 52-week project with TQ, or just visit the blog, and grab an idea and run (or shoot) with it!
There are days that I go to the lake and come home with 200 images plus. I find myself culling through multiples of the same image, understandable with shooting wildlife as you don’t want to miss a shot. I decided that my first week’s project should be shooting as if I only have one roll of film. So, I could only shoot 12 images in one lake visit. This forced me to slow down, and really be selective about pressing the shutter release. I have included a few of my favorites from that shoot below.
Would you like to do a 52-week project? Next week’s theme is movement. This can be achieved by slowing your shutter speed to get some intentional motion blur, or you can speed it up to capture some action!! Please feel free to join me on Facebook and share your project works of art!
