PHOTOGRAPHY
I started taking pictures when my parents got me a little film camera for Christmas when I was 13. We were headed on a long trip from Michigan to the West Coast and back. I learned a lot about photography that summer, mostly because there were a lot of new and cool things to shoot, and I had a limited amount of film so I had to carefully plan every shot.
I then graduated to a Minolta 35mm for photo classes in high school, where I learned technical camera and darkroom skills. These came in handy as I was learning Photoshop and art-directing shoots as part of my design jobs.
Now that I have a smartphone camera in my pocket everywhere I go, I think I actually take fewer pictures. Or maybe I still take as many, but just keep less because I don't compose them as carefully and they don't hold my interest when I look at them later. I think I still prefer the intentionality of using a digital SLR camera, but the smartphone panorama feature is addictive. As always, different tools are better for different things, and I think they work best in combination.
In the end, I will always get a thrill when the stars align and I've just created an interesting photograph through intention and luck.
Here's some of my recent favorites:
I then graduated to a Minolta 35mm for photo classes in high school, where I learned technical camera and darkroom skills. These came in handy as I was learning Photoshop and art-directing shoots as part of my design jobs.
Now that I have a smartphone camera in my pocket everywhere I go, I think I actually take fewer pictures. Or maybe I still take as many, but just keep less because I don't compose them as carefully and they don't hold my interest when I look at them later. I think I still prefer the intentionality of using a digital SLR camera, but the smartphone panorama feature is addictive. As always, different tools are better for different things, and I think they work best in combination.
In the end, I will always get a thrill when the stars align and I've just created an interesting photograph through intention and luck.
Here's some of my recent favorites:
