The first 5 days

So it's been less than a week, and I'm already having a blast with all of this. I'm sure at least a little bit of the enthusiasm comes from the new-ness of it all, but I can see where this can get addictive. I suppose the nice thing is that as long as I keep a reasonable expectation on gear expansion I should be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of this without throwing more money at it.

Anyway, onto the actual photography. Upon seeing many suggestions for it, I read Brian Peterson's Understanding Exposure. The book left me a bit.. underwhelmed. This is mostly because at least 90% of the information contained in the book was information that I had already read from other sources. I suppose it would have been a decent "one stop shop" to getting the exposure triangle down, if I hadn't already read so much about the subject online in the week that I had to wait for my camera to arrive.

As of right now I have taken about 800 shots, and about 20 of them have come out as ones that I really like a lot, with another 30 or so being ones that are decent, but I wouldn't "show off". Most of the good ones have been uploaded to Flickr, but I'll post a few favorites here for the sake of discussion.

Didn't Get Far

Every time I jump into trying to pick "favorite shots", this one really just leaps out at me. I think the thing that I'm happiest about with this photo is that my post processing on it was very minimal (almost non-existent). Of everything I've taken so far, this may be the shot that I am currently happiest with how it captured exactly what I wanted when I came upon the subject.

Forgotten Station

This shot is from a part of Wichita that I find super interesting. There's an old train depot of some sorts that was renovated into an office space for Cox Communications some years ago. More recently Cox has abandoned this building to take up residence in a smaller building nearby, as well as satellite offices around the city. The urban decay factor around this old depot is just too cool not to go poking around.

Power Rise

I went out early on my to work the day after I got my camera in order to get some dawn/sunrise pics. Most of them turned out utterly crappy because I had no idea what I was doing, but I got a few shots where I was able to capture some backlit telephone/power lines in the early morning light. This shot made the whole thing worth it.

Untitled

This tree... oh wow I love this tree. This tree is on one of my commutes to work (depending on what school I'm working at), and I have thought for quite a while now how I'd love to take some photos of this tree once I had a better camera. So, I made it a priority on the first day that I had the camera to go out and shoot photos of this tree. Not sure what I have to say about the photo, but isn't this a cool tree?

Well, that's all I'm going to share for now, but if you want to see more of my favorites, feel free to head on over and take a glance at them on my Flickr page.

“Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

― Henri Cartier-Bresson

It's here!

So my T3i arrived today (after a bit of trouble with UPS), and I'm already having a great time with it! Sadly by the time I got the package it was already after dark, so I have already started my photography career by trying to shoot at night and indoors. That being said, I'm getting great practice at trying to make the best of low light. Cat's are hella hard to take pictures of in low light!

I've probably taken about 100 shots or so thus far. Out of them there have been about 5 that I'm fairly satisfied with. Here's what I have so far:

 

 Surprisingly, I've already found that I feel far more comfortable trying to shoot manual than I do in full auto modes. I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to whip out exposure settings without more or less just doing what the exposure meter shows as normal, but it's a start.

One more bonus shot to post because I had to grab the camera to take it right in the middle of this post:

"The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I hate to get too far ahead of myself here, but I have felt the tug of a certain white rabbit pulling a pocket watch out of his waistcoat for quite some time now. Calling me down the rabbit hole to find out what's so very interesting about the very important date that he's late to. That white rabbit in this case is photography.

Photography is one of those subjects that, for me, has been alluring for quite a while, but I never considered it too seriously because of the financial barriers in place. I've considered getting a DSLR for about 3 years now, but the finances for it were just never in the cards. Fortunately, I've come across a bit of disposable income lately that has allowed me to order my first DSLR (along with 3 lenses).

Today I put in an order with B&H for a Canon EOS T3i w/ 3 lenses.

• The EF-S 18-55mm IS Kit lens (I deeply considered an upgrade to the 18-135mm version, looks like a great lens to start with, but I didn't think I could budget it in with the two other lenses I ended up ordering)
• EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II Lens
• 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III Autofocus Lens

So this is where my journey starts (by waiting on the mailman).

The purpose of this blog (assuming that I properly keep up with it), will be chronicling my entry into photography as a hobby. The decision to finally buy the camera was made about two days ago, and I've already spent several hours reading up on tips and tricks for beginning photographers. I think I've picked up about as good of a grasp on lighting, exposure, framing, etc. as I can without just taking a camera out and shooting stuff.

So with that, I wait... impatiently.

My plan is to keep this as a sort of public journal, sharing written articles of the learning process, as well as some of my best (and probably worst) images. I welcome any advice that veteran photographers care to share along the way.

On a final note, because I find Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland novels to be such a wonderful archetype of a journey into the unknown and fantastical, I have decided to use it as a theme. Expect me to quote it often - although I will probably quote other works of literature as well.

Remember what the Dormouse said.... Feed your head.