Several people have asked me how and why I ended up getting into photography and since blogs are in fashion now, I decided to start sharing what I have been learning and that maybe it could be useful to someone who is thinking of experimenting with photography.
Here's my first attempt at blogging!
Since I was a teenager, photography caught my attention, but it seemed expensive and impractical to me about film rolls and developing. There was a limited number of photos on each roll, so I had to think very carefully about whether the photo I was going to take was worth it or not before taking it so that the roll would cover the entire ride.
On the other hand, development for me was like an occult science to which I had no access, with the dark room and many chemicals, so I had to wait for the commercial development to know if the photos had turned out well or not and this meant develop and print all the photos on the roll.
This seemed like a big waste to me because most of it ended up in the trash except for a few good ones destined for a photo frame and the rest for an album that eventually gathered dust in the library or in one of my mother's drawers.
However, how we all now enjoy seeing those photos of when we were little at the family reunion or on the school walk!!!
When my children were born I wanted to document every moment to share them with my family who was far away, so I took many photos, developed them in double packages and then sent the best ones by mail so that the grandparents were aware of the progress of the first granddaughter.
Then, when my daughter was about a year old, they started offering the service of digitizing photos during development. They even gave the option of not printing them, they only delivered a disk with the digital photos, which made the process of sharing and saving them much easier without having to have libraries full of albums that no one looked at again.
Simultaneously, the first digital cameras appeared, which for me had countless advantages, starting with the undeveloped. I simply connected the camera to my computer and there, I could immediately see the photos, share them with whoever I wanted and choose which ones were worth printing to put in that album I never put together or in a photo frame.
Since I was little I really liked technology, everything related to computers and the moment I had control over the technological “development” of my photos and without having a limit on the number of photos I could take, I began to experiment and take photos of everything I could think of, my main models being my children and family trips. I always had my camera on all the walks and at parties and then I sent the photos to friends by email. Websites like Kodak and Shutterfly appeared where you could upload photos, make albums, order prints and even complete books with photos of walks and events. The link to each album could be shared and friends could also print their copies or save them on their hard drives.
As my children grew up and didn't like me taking photos of them, I had to take photos of the landscapes and the tourist sites we visited, but it seemed to me that those photos didn't have much interest or use, so they accumulated. on increasingly larger hard drives.
One day my cousin came to the house with his super “professional camera” and I dedicated myself to asking him about everything he could do and how he had learned. There I craved one and decided to really learn about the subject, so that those photos of landscapes and tourist sites without models would become a little more interesting. So that was my Mother's Day gift... my first real camera, and at this point I decided that I was passionate about photography and wanted to learn everything I could.
My cousin also gave me some advice: “Look for videos on YouTube, there you can learn whatever you want.” As soon as the camera arrived, the first thing I did was study the manual from start to finish, trying out each of the functions and buttons it had, which gave me a lot of technical information. Then I took a basic course where they taught me the main concepts and I shared with other photography enthusiasts.
There are millions of places to find information. In fact, 90% of what I have learned has been from blogs and videos on the internet. The rest with a couple of courses and sharing tips and experiences with other friends who are passionate about photography. However, without practice and experimentation I would not have learned anything. With practice you actually learn and enjoy photography.
Photography, like all arts, is subjective and although there are “rules” anything is possible, anything goes, the important thing is to do it with the heart and for personal satisfaction!
