Here it is, February 11, 2012, and the first post on my brand new photography blog, as I the baby steps on what I hope to be a long, fulfilling journey of "going pro" as a photographer.
I have been kicking around the idea of going pro (or at least semi-pro) for a couple years and this year's only New Year's resolution was to take the steps and get my fledgling business started as I embark on the new year.
By creating this blog, I hope to share with you my experiences, knowledge, tips and humorous anecdotes along the way.
I have been doing photography since the year 2002 where I learned the ropes on a Canon G2 point and shoot camera. I LOVED that camera! For its day, it had superb image quality, great color, low noise and was a joy to use. Best of all, it had manual controls, which allowed me to slowly learn my craft and apply the "trinity of exposure" of aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
This little camera allowed me to test the limits of the camera and get a foundation in the craft of photography.
After a year or so with that great little camera, I started to quickly outgrow its capabilities and I needed to upgrade to something with a little bit more power.
At that time, Canon and Nikon digital SLRs were quite pricy and out of reach for mass consumption, until Canon released the first sub-one thousand dollar digital SLR, the original Digital Rebel. THAT was that camera which changed my life as a photographer forever.
From the Digital Rebel, I upgraded to to the Canon 10D, and then eventually I upgraded to the Canon 40D. I remember getting the 40D just before embarking on a trip to Ireland with my Barbershop Harmony society chorus Pacific Sound. I only had the 40D for a couple of weeks and I was a bit worried about taking it abroad and having it get stolen or destroyed on the trip.
Nevertheless, I took the camera and fell absolutely in LOVE with the 40D during my time in Ireland. Some say the 40D was the best camera Canon has ever made in the X0D series of Canon camera bodies.I would tend to agree with that statement. It made great imaged was relatively sturdy and a joy to use! I fell in love with so many of the images I took on that trip, that it was that camera and that trip where my passion for photography really started to grow.
Then, in March of 2009, I did something rather brash. I sold all of my Canon gear which consisted of two bodies (10D and 40D) and multiple professional "L" lenses and "jumped to the dark side" and bought my first pro-level body, the Nikon D700 and 27-70 lens.
Why the change? Quite frankly, I like Nikon camera bodies more than Canon's. At the time, Canon's pro-level cameras were having focusing issues as they were slow to focus, and not nearly as accurate as the Nikon bodies at the time.
When launched, the D700 was heralded as a stripped down or "Baby D3" (Nikon's flagship camera at the time) The D700 focused fast and accurately and performed very well in low light. Also, I loved that I could press two button on the body simultaneously to reformat my memory cards, and do another key combo to reset my camera's settings to a base level. To this day, I am not sure that Canons have this ability and I just don't understand it.
I can't tell you how many times after a day of shooting with my 40D, were I would pick up my camera and shoo the entire day at ISO 1600 in bright daylight, or watch as my exposures jumped all over the place because my camera was still in bracketing mode from shooting HDR's the day before. The ability to reset my camera, and then go in and set it up to my personal baseline configuration has made using D700 a joy to work with.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Canon camera's too. I cut my teeth on them and Canon makes fine caemras. For as much as I love Nikon bodies, I love Canon's lens selection, especially in their pro "L" series of lenses. Canon has a much wider selection of lenses at much more reasonable prices than Nikon does at the pro level.
Even though I "jumped ship" I still love and respect Canon cameras, so for all of you Canon fan-boys, don't flame me, because I am not a Nikon fan-boy and I don't hate Canon.
Going forward, just days ago, on Feb 7, 2012, Nikon announced the D700 replacement, the D800. I have placed my order and should receive one once they get in stock at Adorama in Late March.
Its a good time to go pro.
I will be trying to shoot and process images every weekend in some form or another for the entire year. (At least, That's the goal)
In the meantime, I will continue to post my progress as I try to break into the commercial side of photography ans well as portraiture.
It should be a fun ride, while simultaneously being just a little bit terrifying as well.
=BM=
Last night we had another SBJPG.com meetup at Kenji's, this time, with the lovely Hanna as our model. These meetups are always a lot of fun, but can often times be a bit chaotic. You see, Kenji's shooting space, although highly functional, is quite small. Getting five photographers, a makeup artist and a model into the shooting space the size of your average walk-in closet makes for a cozy experience. Its a good thing that we all get a long!
The photo was lit by a medium softbox above and slightly forward of Hanna's head. Light was then bounced using white foam core below her face, and on both sides. I didn't get a good picture of the set up, but you can kid of get the idea from the iPhone picture below.
