My love for photography comes from my dad, although I didn’t realize that until after he was gone. Dad had always loved photography, he used to develop his own photographs, unfortunately I was too young to remember. My memory kicks in with those terrible slideshow nights. Ugh! Of course I would give anything for them today! My Dad also gave me the love of the outdoors and all the wonders nature offers us.
I have had cameras as long as I can remember, I believe my first was a Kodak Instamatic, I can picture those flashcubes in my mind to this day. I fortunately inherited a good eye from my Dad, so I was able to get away with shooting automatic and still produce photographs people enjoyed. My brother tried to teach me the technical side, all that talk of shutter speeds, f-stops, aperture, etc. just spun around in my head. Why did it matter, everyone loved my pictures. I just upgraded cameras, somehow I thought that would take my photography to the next level.
In January of 2018 I joined a group of trail runners, and turns out the organizer’s husband (and one of the runners) is a successful photographer! In addition to selling his photographs (dream) teaches photography and Lightroom in small groups. July 2018 I took my first workshop on Lightroom and post processing. That began my journey, but then I ran into all sorts of technical difficulty and frustration with my computer. I got so irritated with the whole thing I stopped taking pictures for the most part because I couldn’t fix my technical issues. December 2019 I was done, I was so frustrated, I had to get it fixed, and fixed now! Of course it was the holidays and no one could get me in. I sat down, and for about two weeks I googled, YouTubed and worked on my computer. I did it! I gotit figured out! I pulled my notes out from Nic’s (Nic Stover Photography) class and started back in Lightroom.
Nic had said something that ate at me, he said something along the lines of a good eye means nothing, you have to understand the phycology and rules to create a great photograph. In February I started my first photography class at the local community college. In March our classes ended due to COVID-19. I took my notes from class, along with YouTube videos and started my journey to manual mode! Nic was teaching post-processing workshops via Zoom. I remember a comment somewhere along the way that said to shoot everything in full manual, it is the only way you’ll get it. That thought terrified me, I didn’t want to miss the shot because I got it wrong. Well I’ve been shooting full manual for about 3 months now and I am very happy with the results even though I make a lot of mistakes, I always learn from them. The funny thing, as with so many things in life, the more you learn the more you realize how much you don’t know!
I invite you to join me on my journey to becoming an award winning photographer (just throwing it out in the universe). I look forward to sharing with you the things I learn and the stories behind the photographs!
Laurie ~ Living Life and Capturing the Moment!
