New beginnings

Sunset over the Tehachapi mountains from Mojave - I also take a lot of windmill pictures (you will find)

Welcome to my blog. I am new to all this, never having tried to write a blog before. But I am stepping into a world I haven't tried before - the world of professional photography, and I thought I would chronicle my adventures (and misadventures) along the way.

 

There is a lot to learn, and every time I learn something new, it reveals even more that I need to learn. Luckily I enjoy the process and the challenge of new information and applying it to the tasks at hand.

 



Willow Springs Filming location - I found it on accident!



I just got a new camera last week, and that has been an adventure in itself. I have had a Rebel XTI for several years and have many, many wonderful pictures with it, but it just had limitations that kept me from doing some of the things I wanted to do with it (mostly shoot in almost total darkness and/or have higher quality portrait potential). So I took the plunge and bought a Canon 7D. I had read reviews, seen pictures taken with it, and thought I was getting an AWESOME camera. But as I took pictures this last week, they were just too grainy for what I expected from this AMAZING camera. What was wrong? I figured there was some setting I just hadn't found yet, so I re-read the manual, looked at the Canon website and checked out some forums that discussed graininess. They were of no help. Grrr! So I e-mailed Canon with my concerns. They let me know that maybe I just needed better lenses, or to use a lower ISO or no filters. Well, the graininess persisted despite all of that, until I happened to push a couple of buttons in random sequence and found the SHARPNESS adjustment page. I knew about the sharpness setting, but I had not found out how to get to it. Sure enough, I raised that up to 6 instead of 3 or 4 (where ALL the pictures styles were set), and the pictures were SO much better. YAY!



The beginnings of a Joshua tree bloom



I am really excited now to get out and see my world through the lens of this new camera. I pretty much take pictures of whatever suits my fancy and I edit them in whatever style fits my mood or the picture itself. So I don't really have a set style of photography that I specialize in, but right now if I had to pick, it would be a combination of landscapes and close-ups. I really am amazed at how wonderfully our world is put together, both on the large scale and the small scale. And when I take people's portraits, I am most happy when I see their real personalities reflected in the pictures.

 

Well, thanks for reading. I will be in the process of developing my portfolio, a business card, and various and sundry other photography related activities. You can follow along by subscribing to my blog.

ENJOY!!!