f/stop, ISO, aperture, white balance, bracketing, bokeh, histogram, RAW+JPEG, HDR, stacking . . . And the list goes on; jargon that rolls off the tongues of my fellow photo club members. Meanwhile, I just want to take pretty pictures.
I'm slowly picking up some tips and tricks by watching others, reading books, looking at lots of photos and asking questions. And this weekend I attended a meeting of the Nature Photographers of the Pacific Northwest. Check out the some of the winning photos submitted there. I learned some new techniques for making sharper photos and was anxious to try out these techniques on Sunday morning at Portland's Japanese Garden. I thought I'd get there early to take advantage of the members-only hours from 8-10 AM. Apparently, I wasn't the only person to have this idea, despite the rain.
It's true that the Japanese maples offer exquisite shapes and colors. And I was thrilled to notice one special tree that had a mushroom growing out of its trunk. Can you see it growing on the left side of the trunk in the center of the photo below?
However, as I learned last night at my local photo club, it's not enough to capture the image in the field; you also have to be a master of post-processing on the computer. Winning photos have typically been carefully massaged to remove imperfections and to add highlights, often with add-on enhancement software and very clever use of special effects. I have a lot to learn in this domain, and my photos were judged merely average.
So in the meantime, I'll continue taking photos for my personal pleasure and to send you, my indulgent readers, a record of my travels. After all, for me, photography is not about ISO, aperture or bracketing. And it's not about lenses, filters, tripods and post-processing. It is about seeing and feeling. Telling a story. Being outdoors in the fresh air and noticing the effect of sunlight on raindrops. It is acknowledging the ineluctability of change, the recognition of mortality, and an attempt to be fully alive in the present moment. And if I happen to capture ephemera on film, so much the better.
I'm slowly picking up some tips and tricks by watching others, reading books, looking at lots of photos and asking questions. And this weekend I attended a meeting of the Nature Photographers of the Pacific Northwest. Check out the some of the winning photos submitted there. I learned some new techniques for making sharper photos and was anxious to try out these techniques on Sunday morning at Portland's Japanese Garden. I thought I'd get there early to take advantage of the members-only hours from 8-10 AM. Apparently, I wasn't the only person to have this idea, despite the rain.
So in the meantime, I'll continue taking photos for my personal pleasure and to send you, my indulgent readers, a record of my travels. After all, for me, photography is not about ISO, aperture or bracketing. And it's not about lenses, filters, tripods and post-processing. It is about seeing and feeling. Telling a story. Being outdoors in the fresh air and noticing the effect of sunlight on raindrops. It is acknowledging the ineluctability of change, the recognition of mortality, and an attempt to be fully alive in the present moment. And if I happen to capture ephemera on film, so much the better.
Well said about photography and life!
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