It wasn't my FIRST major. I was a music performance major first. I have no idea what I thought I was going to do for a living, but I ditched it when theory started taking all the magic out of music and turning it in to just another math class. (I detest math.) I was decent at theory. I just didn't enjoy it.
Then it was on to Art. I figured I would be a Art Teacher. The hiccup was that I couldn't draw and didn't have the patience of a teacher. That lasted a year too. I DID enjoy Art History, and art is something I understand and relate to. But I would have been a terrible teacher.
So then I went off to Atlanta and attended the Art Institute and studied photography, and proceeded to waste my time there by half-assing every assignment and generally not applying myself. I got three or four good pics the whole time I was there... yet somehow managed to walk out with a nearly useless (to me) AA in photography and a vastly over-inflated view of my skills as a photographer.
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| 4X5" Ektachrome 64T Professional 6118 painted with flashlight |
Then I moved back to my home state, where, (back then, at least) little photography of the type I was best suited to doing was being done, and proceeded to make an ass out of myself at every job interview I ever managed to get.
I could light, expose, and compose photographs just fine. My problem was that most of the photography in my home state involved photography of people... (Portraits, Weddings, School Kids, Ball Teams... that sort of stuff.)
...and I am terrible with people.
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| Hasselblad 500C w/150mm f/4 Carl Zeiss Sonnar, Fujicolor NPS |
To be honest, I probably fall somewhere on the Asperger's spectrum. If you are close enough to me to have ever had a deep conversation with me, or have even managed to get me to make more than fleeting eye contact with you, you are in a small club. (Though normally I am just pointing my ear at you... I can either listen to what you are saying... or look at you... take your pick.)
...unless, of course, I am staring at you vacantly... at which point I probably do not realize where my eyes are pointed. Seriously... this is what it is like to be me. It is embarrassing, and it is the primary reason I spend so much time alone. Interaction is complicated for me. I have some very dear friends who I am relaxed around... but it takes time and timing to get there.
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| 4X5" Ektachrome 100 Plus Professional 6105 |
I am also a horrible businessman AND, though I may come across as arrogant, the problem is actually the opposite of that. I mean... I like myself just fine, but I am always aware that I don't present to others well, (at least initially).. so self-promotion is a maze I have never been able to find my way through. I always seem to either come across as incompetent, or aloof. I could never find the middle ground due to my basic weirdness. This is still a problem I deal with today.
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| La Monumental - Hasselblad 500CM w/150mm Carl Zeiss Sonnar - T-MAX 100 |
I ended up taking a job printing pics in a one hour lab... then working the counter at a pro photo store... then taking pics in a mall at one of those "glamour shots" type places.. then I worked for a photo studio for a short time... got a few freelance jobs here and there on the side... managed a photo lab for a school photographer.. and eventually ended up doing forensic photography at a crime laboratory.
You don't need people skills when your subjects are in a morgue. It was an interesting job, and a few times I took some pictures that helped bring some nasty people to justice... but ultimately... my career in photography was a flop. I went back to school and got in to IT and have been doing that for the past 16 or 17 years.
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| 4X5 - multiple exposures + painted with flashlight - VPL 6013 |
I eventually sold my Sinar 4X5, but I still have my Hasselblad and Nikon film cameras and lenses in a closet unused. The only photography I have done in years is when I travel... and it is done with a tiny Canon PowerShot S110 that will fit in my pocket. (I had the S100 before that)... the Canons are great little cameras for their size... but it was the SIZE that I was interested in. I didnt want to lug a big camera around and miss everything I was there to experience thinking about f-stops and shutter speeds. I still don't.
...but I have started to resent the fact that I never really produced a substantial body of work as a photographer. I am happy with my job in IT, and I still couldn't handle people well enough to become a professional photographer... but that doesn't mean I cant produce some good pics for ME.
I feel like I have some unfinished business with photography. Something to show for the years of my life I spent in that field.
So I went and got me one of them fancy new Digital SLRs all you kids have these days.
I think i am gonna go take some pics.
They wont be great... at least not at first.. but I might document the process here as I figure all of this out and re-learn an art I more or less abandoned years ago. I expect a learning curve.
Fern. Garvan Gardens - May 13, 2017
Here is the first somewhat decent pic I got on my first day out with my shiny new Nikon D750, which sits in a good place as a higher end enthusiast full frame camera. I don't need the 36.3 MP of the D810... but I wanted full frame and the ability to use my stable of old lenses as well as new ones, and wasnt about to drop $4000-$6500 for a pro camera. This pic was taken with an old manual focus Nikon 105mm f/2.5 AI lens, a hoya circular polarizer and a touch (not much) of editing in Photoshop Elements 7.0.
The light falling on the frond is natural, though. It pretty much looked like this through the lens.
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| Nikon D750 w/Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 AI, ISO 400, 1/200 f2.5 |
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