My Photography Journey
For as long as I can remember I have enjoyed taking pictures. My dad enjoyed it too so we always had cameras to use around the house and on vacation. In college I even took a photography class but it was the same semester that I was pledging my sorority so needless to say, it didn’t get my full attention. 😳 I enjoyed it though and used my dad’s film camera and stayed with film for a long time.
Getting started young
After college I bought my own Canon SLR - film, not digital. I loved that camera even though I had no idea what I was doing. And to now know that I was just shooting blindly, I actually had a lot of decent photos during that time like this one below. About four months after this photo was taken I made the huge mistake of putting it in my checked baggage coming home from California. The next time I used it was for my first trip to Las Vegas. It had been making a strange noise but seemed to be okay. When I went to pick up the film from the local camera store in Gainesville, they told me there was nothing on the film. I started crying in the middle of the store. 😳 I mean, we had even gone to the Grand Canyon for the first time and I distinctly recalled my friend stating she knew she didn’t have to worry about photos because I’d take them. 🤦🏼♀️ All I can assume is that it got jostled around too much in my checked bag because we all know how ‘careful’ airline employees are with bags. 🙄 Learn from me and don’t check your camera unless you have a specific bag for it!
This photo is actually part of Gator history as it was put on the 2006 UF Gators Men’s Basketball National Championship Poster! You can apparently buy the poster on Ebay for $18 😂
In late 2006, I finally made the switch to digital with a Canon DSLR. I don’t know how I ever lived without being able to see the photo, especially now. But even with a digital and all the features of it, I shot it in auto mode. I loved it but unfortunately, in 2013 my house got broken into and some of my gear was stolen. At that time I could only afford to get a Canon Powershot that had a zoom lens attached as a replacement - so it was more of a point and shoot. I also said I was tired of carrying all the big gear but in reality I was tired of it because I didn’t know how to actually use it. I will however still use the Canon Powershot camera at Disney when I actually don’t want to carry my normal one - usually when it’s really hot out. The Powershot is actually a decent camera - I even got one of my favorite shots ever on it when Shane and I went to Ambergris Cay in Belize.
Auto mode on my PowerShot happened to pick all the correct settings for this one - and I could actually see it on the back of the camera after I took it so I knew it was going to be awesome.
In 2016 I started getting more serious about photography and wanted to learn how to shoot in manual (where I choose all the settings, not the camera) because it seemed like this is what all the professionals were doing. So I took some online classes with the New York Institute of Photography - a Travel Photography Course and a general Professional Photography Course. They gave me all the basics and I started shooting in manual with the Canon Powershot. So, I was setting the shutter speed (how fast or slow the shutter was opening), the aperture/F-Stop (the depth of field) and the ISO (how sensitive the camera is to light). That is when I started to see the Powershot’s restrictions as I didn’t have a full range of settings on it. I still took it to Italy on our honeymoon and shot in manual that whole trip. I was definitely starting to get better and I could tell you what those three things were that I was controlling, but what I didn’t actually understand was how they all worked together.
A then-successful manual shot from Italy. While I would go back in time and change settings I love this photo and it’s still hanging on our wall.
In 2017 I took the plunge and bought a new DSLR, a Canon 6D . And I started shooting in Raw format as opposed to Jpeg (the default format) because this camera could and it seemed like that is what all the professionals were doing (see a pattern here?). Supposedly shooting in the Raw made it easier to edit but I still hadn’t even gotten in to that. But off I went with my new camera - and guess where my first stop was? My favorite place on earth - Disney World! I was ridiculously happy that I had more control than the Powershot because I was able to get a blurred out background.
Yay for a greater range in F-stops 😂
In 2018 I finally got Adobe Lightroom to edit my photos. I took an online class to teach myself how to use it and have also taken two classes this year but I still don’t know everything about the program! I wanted to learn more in general so I became a Clickin Moms Member and went to their Click Away Conference in February of 2018. I had a great time at the conference mainly because I could actually talk to people in person about photography. The photos from that conference were the first time I realized what Lightroom could actually do. Below is an example my original photo is on the left, edited on the right. Clearly a big difference and I immediately fell in love with Lightroom. The conference was at the Omni in Amelia Island and the hotel even shared the edited version of my photo on their Instagram!
While I love what Lightroom can do I don’t love spending a lot of time editing so my goal now is to always get the settings as right as possible in my camera. Plus, editing can’t always save photos. After moving to Charlotte in late 2018 I found that The Photo Classroom held in-person classes. I knew from the Click Away Conferences that actually talking to people in real time about photography benefited me better than the self-paced online classes with the New York Institute of Photography. So in April of 2019 I took my first class with them - a sports class and I was hooked. I found out that they had three certification levels and if you finished the first level, you were eligible to participate an internship with them - which meant helping out on professional shoots with The Professional Photography Group and getting to shoot sporting events like The Charlotte Independence (the minor league soccer team here). I finished my level one classes in two months which was as fast as I possibly could and started my Internship in June of 2019. I just finished my Level Two certification and will finish Level Three in February (a lot have been through Zoom because of Covid). It is INSANE how much my photography has improved since I started taking classes with them and I wanted to share some images that refelct those changes below. I no longer shoot in manual, that is actually rare for me. I mostly shoot in Aperture Priority which means I set the depth of field each time. Then I adjust the ISO until the camera selects the shutter speed I need for what I’m shooting. I’ve learned with my classes that if a shot is out of focus there is literally nothing that can save it. And when you think about that, it is 100% true. Your lighting, color and composition can be perfect. But if the subject is blurry, it is a worthless photo. I also never shoot in RAW format anymore, only JPEG. You can sometimes edit more in a RAW photo but honestly, if I can’t edit it how I want to when it’s in a JPEG format, then the shot wasn’t likely going to be saved by shooting in RAW. In my classes I saw an example of a shot in RAW with a high ISO and a shot in JPEG with a high ISO and the the RAW photo had more ‘noise’ in it - meaning it was more grainy. It immediately changed my mind and I switched my camera to shoot in JPEG that day and have never gone back. Not to mention the RAW files are very large so shooting in JPEG saves lots of space on my computer.
Sports
Sports are something that I LOVE to shoot and why the Sports class was my first one with The Photo Classroom. In 2017 (on the left) I didn’t even use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the wallball and it makes the photo unappealing. Obviously in 2019 (on the right) I had the appropriate shutter speed and it makes it a much better photo.
People
I apologize to my sister’s oldest. He got the short end of the stick on photos as a baby. I now know how to use natural lighting better and how to get a better white balance (aka the overall color in a photo). Poor Q has sun in his face on his first birthday shot and his first hair cut photo is horrifically yellow (but he sure is cute!). S on the other hand got my most favorite photo of him ever on his first birthday (yes that is the same Gator onesie!) and the lighting in his first Disney haircut photo actually looks like it did in the barbershop.
Okay, I know the Three Little Pigs aren’t actually people.🤷🏼♀️ However, these photos are only three months apart - February (the left) and May of 2019. But in that time I started my classes and I learned what settings to use so the people that were walking by me weren’t blurry. People in parades don’t move particularly fast but since I had the wrong shutter speeds, the Three Little Pigs ended up blurry. I clearly fixed that with the photo on the right. Not to mention the lighting is much better as well.
Nighttime
Nighttime shots are probably the improvement that I personally love the most. Shooting in JPEG allows me to have my ISO higher than if I was shooting in RAW. The shot on the left was in 2018 and is so grainy (the banisters on the float and the trees in the back look fuzzy) because I shot in RAW at a high ISO plus being in RAW. In 2019 I knew to shoot in JPEG and could still have a high ISO. My 2018 Halloween Parade photos are absolutely terrible compared to the ones I took in 2019. And only because I finally knew what settings to use - as the camera was the exact same one.
