My interest in photography extends back at least to my early teens, when I started pestering my father to teach me the rudiments of development techniques and cropping. An amateur enthusiast himself, my father had set up a small yet fully functional darkroom in our basement, and I well remember the heavy smell of the stop bath, the eerie glow of the safelight, and his constant fidgeting with the enlarger. A handful of photography courses added to my basic awareness of the photographic method, but it would be many years before I had the funds necessary to actually pursue this interest successfully.
The rise of digital cameras has been a bit of mixed blessing, allowing many the opportunity to experiment with relatively high-quality equipment without being fully immersed in the challenging world of "real" photography. The fact that my father has long ago packed up his darkroom and now relies on digital methods means he is able to continue exploring his hobby while avoiding the time-consuming methods that often frustrate the enthusiast. I'd still like to get back in the darkroom someday, and can't exactly take phone cameras seriously unless they're being utilized for journalistic purposes. But one can only fight the current for so long.
So, after several years of becoming increasingly frustrated with the limitations inherent in the entry-level digital camera, it was decided to take a moderate step forward in quality. Having no particular allegiance to either Nikon or Canon, I went with Canon due to the recommendations of several friends and acquaintances who had high praise for their latest models. While the EOS 7D would seem to be everything a mere enthusiast like me could hope for in a camera, both the price point and the intimidating level of expertise suggested by the instruction manual convinced me that I needn't pretend to be something I'm not, and I chose the half-step-down EOS Rebel T2i, a lovely piece of hardware. While the world of advanced lenses still beckons, I'm content for now with the basic 135 mm attachment, complete with an image stabilizer. And I still need to explore the video options included with the package.
What does this all mean to you, the reader? Not much, except a promise of higher-quality photographic offerings in the near future, and probably more than a few failed experiments with lighting and composition. I've also decided to start up a new blog to showcase photography, having always felt that this blog should focus primarily on writing and words. I'll periodically offer links to the photos if I think they're especially noteworthy. I hope to upload photos every week or so, with some kind of general theme more often than not.
The first post offers just under a dozen shots taken around our house of the numerous types of flora coaxed into life by copious watering practices. Landscape and urban environments remain, at the moment, my area of interest - not much for portraiture or photoshop, I'm a big fan of documentary realism and the cultural landscape works of Stephen Shore. This may change in the future.
http://coastalscrubjg.blogspot.com/2010/10/urban-or-suburban-flora.html
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