Fun with photography

Diffuse glow, tinting

Once upon a time (not so long ago) I was deadset against digital photography. I had worked in film and "wet" processing for quite a while and as digital photography was first rolled out I thought the digital product was far inferior. I made the mistake of writing off digital photography before giving it a chance to mature.

It has now matured.

About six years ago my wife was working as a professional portrait photographer when her company switched from medium format film cameras to Nikon D70 digital SLRs. I could not believe that a professional portraiture company would decide to go digital—especially when their previous cameras were medium format cameras worth multiple thousands of dollars each.

Oversaturated colors, increased contrast, sepia

And then I got to use one of my wife's work cameras on a family outing. Wow! The quality of the photos was outstanding. There was no shutter delay. It worked just like my 35mm film SLR. I was sold

The next step on my journey into digital photography came when I was required to learn Photoshop for work. This software is absolutely amazing and allows the photographer or designer to do things that were once possible only through extensive darkroom manipulation—air brushing, dodging and burning, dust spotting, etc. All of this darkroom manipulation took quite a bit of time and often meant that the resultant print would not be ready for more than a month.

Black & white, high contrast, increased grain

Those days are gone. I am now able to take a photograph, manipulate it in Photoshop, and have a paper print from the instant photography printing at Wal-mart within an hour or so. This has given me a new hobby. I love to play with photos to see if I can change the way photographs look in a pleasing way but in a way that hides the original atmosphere of the photograph. The photos in this post are from the picnic at our church this past Sunday (that's the day before yesterday). It is apparent from some of these photos that they were taken at a picnic, but others do not reveal that at all.

B&W, mild grain, heavy contrast
heavy vignetting, spotlight effect

I have always been a big fan of black & white photography and I love the moody, low-key look. Two of these photos have been manipulated in that way. I don't think anyone would ever know that these low-key photos had been taken at a picnic in the bright sunlight.

A few years ago I purchased a Canon 30D digital SLR. That is the camera that captures the vast majority of the photos on this blog. It's a fantastic camera and a joy to use.

If you have not yet made the move to digital photography, I strongly encourage you to make that switch. Photography is much easier today than it was a mere five or so years ago and is a completely different thing than what my wife and I knew as children. Remember the Brownie camera? It's great to be alive today.