Blog About What You Know

I know about photography. There. Simple statement isn’t it? Ever picked up a camera and taken a photo you like? Does that mean that you know about photography too? Let me explain how I know about photography.

I have had cameras of one sort or another since I was about 10. I started with a little 110 format (remember that?!) compact camera that my parents gave me to go to Scout camp with. The pictures were crap, mostly due to the photographer rather than the format. They were the typical child’s snapshot. Heads missing, fingers over part of the picture, photos of the ground where I’d forgotten to lock the camera. I still have those pictures somewhere and might dig them out. In the two minutes that I’ve been thinking about them they have brought back some great memories.

Anyhow, I moved on to a Practica SLR when I was about 15 and used it very sporadically to take photos of nothing in particular. Following the Practica was a Minolta Dynax SLR that I bought when I started my first proper job. That would have been around 1990 and I think the camera cost me £200 second hand from London Camera Exchange in Southampton. It was posh, it had motor wind, autofocus and a dinky little flash gun that sat on the hot shoe. I used the Minolta for exactly 3 rolls of film before it broke. I never bothered fixing it and gave up on the sport for a few years.

In 2000 I picked up a Canon EOS 600 and a couple of lenses after my father upgraded. It was a chunky beast, but it did the job. I still use one of the lenses that I got with that camera!

In 2003 I, along with Dave (maybe foolishly!) signed up for a City & Guilds Photography course at the local College. We finished the 30 week course, sat the exam (for which I never got my results!) and then didn’t bother submitting the coursework. I completed the course using three cameras:

 
The course covered all the usual suspects – aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, composition etc as well as subject control, darkroom work and some stuff that I have probably forgotten now.

During the course I met Rob. We got on really well even though he’s American, and we are still in touch. He now runs Shooting Hip, a successful wedding photography business.

Since the college course I have purchased a Canon EOS 10d digital SLR. What a fantastic piece of kit! Digital is so easy. Almost too easy. The problem I find now is that often I do not stop to really think about the shot before I take it. Having enough space for 130 images per 1gb CF card I know that I can chimp and then re-shoot if required without worrying about it. Film cameras (especially the Bronica with only 15 shots to a roll of film) forced me stop stop, think, compose, re-compose, measure light, then take the shot. With film I was getting a hit rate of about 1 in 6 shots I was happy with. With digital that is more like 1 in 20.

I have shot six weddings of my own. A couple with the Bronica (scary formals which I hate doing) and four with the digital. The digital style is completely different, much more of a reportage style rather than the formals. I much prefer reportage as there’s no pressure to get exactly the right shot every time.

I have also assisted Rob with a couple of local weddings, both times second shooting for him.

Changing tack ever so slightly, I have one photo that I am really really proud of:

This was taken with the Bronica during a private visit to Stonehenge in 2003, just before I started the college course. I didn’t know what I was doing then and the quality of the image is more by luck than skill. This version (as you can probably guess) does not do the image any justice at all. I have this printed at 40″x30″ and it is simply awesome.

Dave have a plan to teach his Scouts photography. There is a progress award for it and we’d like to get as many Scouts through the badge as we can.

If you’ve made it this far, congrats! I’ll be writing some more about photography in the near future. An idea I am formulating into something more substantial is to blog the basics of photography. I might even run it as a “course” for people to take part in as I write it. Don’t know yet, it might happen, it might not.

In the meantime, you can see more of my photos at my photo blog.