First Steps into Photography with a new Canon EOS 40D
Yeah, so I just got the EOS 4D.. and this is my first few steps into photography. I’ve wanted a do this since I was a little kid looking at the service merchandise wish book.. at SLRs and just dreaming of taking up photography…. aww, but my parents never helped me out along these lines… till now I guess.
There’s a number of reasons I’m interested in photography… everything from artistic ones to social media strategy reasons.. to it being helpful for the design side of my stuff to.. various other strategy stuff.. to.. it would be nice to document my paintings if I want to sell them.. to.. well it might be nice to sell stuff on EBay and what not..
A couple days latter:
So there’s a number of reasons I’m jumping into photography.. more so then I’ll get to in this blog entry, but it’s at least worth talking about to contextualize these adventures. Another words.. you have what I can only call “an ecology of goals.” That ecology defines what success is for me, and thus defines the sorta directions I’m taking.. and how I sorta evaluate myself.
Jesus, got a camera for less then a week and I’m already evaluating myself!?! Yeah, I have issues! I’m often told by friends that I’m too hard on myself, and too self critical. I don’t know how true this is, but I imagine there’s a hell of a lot of truth to it.. but I’m a rebel, and thus I continue on as always.. full of self doubt which.. lucky for me for the moment, fails to oppress forward movement!
The Experience of starting out in photography
Well it started out via getting ripped off by an online camera dealer. The lenses they told me were $1400 lenses were $200 dolor lenses, the high speed SDI card they tried to up sell me to.. while me thinking they were nuts.. turns out my camera doesn’t even use.. aww the joys and shame of it all!!! All this I’ve tried to take in stride.. this and the slow growing realization that I probably need to invest in a lot of stuff I never budgeted for.. Or I would have had the budget for if I hadn’t been ripped off… but lets not dwell on that darkness.
I spent my first day of fooling around with the camera in manuel mode.. In manual mode you set all the controls.. everything from focusing the thing to shudder speed, ISO, and aperture. This didn’t work so well.. and I didn’t get too many good pics out of the deal.
A few latter: Ok.. screw this, lets just look at some pics!
Some Picks
So this would be, like, the very first picture I took.. or close to it anyway.. shooting on auto pilot as it were.. I rather love this pic.. It’s sorta me showing my father my ultra groovy new camera.
This would be sorta latter this day.. I’m now flying full manuel.. though haven’t yet figured out how to control the aperture setting! This is pretty close to my favorite of the day.. but my favorite somehow corrupted.
This of course is dad watching Letterman.. at this hour I’m normally watching Steven Cobert or the Daily Show.. but dad’s a Letterman man… the seat with all the light on it is where mom used to sit.. seems a little symbolic, ha?
That would be dad’s work bench.. kind of an interesting thing to explore.. you can explore it more by clicking on the picture and going to the larger version of the pic on my flickr account.. It’s a bit of a time capsule.
This, of course, is the leaf of death! It’s like a slab of beef Rocky would slam away on for training.. or something like that…
This, of course, is the leaf of life! Yup, can’t have a leaf of death without a leaf of life.. Through death comes life, don’t cha know? But we won’t explore all that stuff here today… at any rate, this and the last one were taken during today’s Blue Hill’s hike.. I’ll no doubt be sharing more pics from this hike latter.. or at least I plan to.. but right now I must be rushing off to today’s Social Media Breakfast..
I’ll just make a concluding comment before I post.. It’s clear to me that I suck at photography!!! I’m struggling.. and.. well.. I’m fairly happy with these pics.. I meant to say more about this.. but for now I’ll just give you this.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:11 am
You do not suck you’re just new at it. We all know you have issues. Do not make me come and there and beat you about the head and shoulders with your own camera bag. You do NOT suck! Grow a sense of self-esteem!
May 1st, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Dude, you are totally selling yourself short by saying you suck!!!! You definitely don’t suck at all!! I see great things ahead with the photography. In fact, the one of your dad in the chair watching Letterman and the chair your mom used to sit in is so….well it’s wicked poignant, man. I’d love to see a sort of photo documentary in that kind of vein.
WWLODD - What Would Leaf Of Death Do?
May 1st, 2008 at 9:27 pm
No really, I do suck!
Well.. I first started saying I sucked after my first day of shooting.. which was down right awful.. right now I seem to be shooting about 1000 pics a day.. more or less. So its sorta like having a zillion monkey’s on type writers.. sooner or latter they’ll write Shakespeare!
I do like these pics.. and I’m slowly developing a small collection of pics I actually like.. these will no doubt be the ones that show up on this blog..
My feeling that I suck is like.. it’s shifted from feeling like.. I was just sooo terrible to.. “damn I got a huge mountain to climb.” I think part of it is. my definition of “acceptable” is like.. on the level of some of the art photography I’ve seen in museums.. or its like the level that my sound work is at.. or my painting / digital graphics at its best moments.. It’s like “good enough” for me is something that has “world historical importance.” Really good would be like.. Matt’s a philosopher and he just kicked Plato’s ass..
So it’s sucking relative to my ambition.. which should probably take a tranquilizer every now and then.. or something.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
You
Don’t
Suck
Deal with it.
Monkeys may come up with Shakespeare eventually but I second the opinion coined about the Letterman photo. And quit looking at it negatively. It’s not how far you have to go - it’s how far you’ve come! You’ve accomplished something already. And your ambition isn’t what needs a tranquilizer - it’s your rampaging sense of self doubt that does. I will build a sense of ego in you even if I have to call IKEA to do it.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:15 pm
umm… I think I didn’t put that well.. or that’s what I was thinking all last night… (lol, more self doubt)
Umm…. Given, I have a lot of self doubt, but I also think self doubt is a natural part of the process. As I write this I’m getting more pics ready to post.. and feeling the doubt fairly acutely… as I see how bad the pictures are.
Seeing how bad the pictures are isn’t quite the same as self doubt mind you.. It’s more like my aesthetic response.. for an artist, your aesthetic response is one of the fundamental keys to making great work.. So I feel like, at least on some levels, my hating my photography is probably healthy.
That’s a different issue from the bigger picture of having a goal to being good at this stuff.. and sorta assessing where you are on that path.. and how you feel about the chances of you actually getting to where you want to go.. If I have any doubt along these lines.. It’s probably along the lines of “do I have the commitment necessary to make that journey?”