The Beginning - And Some Background
People have often said, "You should write a book!" Many of you have heard the same thing, no doubt. The whole thing is... writing a book is not my passion. Here it is, the Sixtieth year of my life - no, not the sixteenth, but the Sixtieth! SIX-ZERO. And the passion that I've been searching for all these years came to me about five or six years ago. You guessed it - Photography! The fascination of Photoshop has been intriguing since the early 90's and now Lightroom is just as intriguing. Without the ability to take great photographs, neither of those programs is worth much to me at all.
The point-and-shoots have always been nearby carried in my purse. Point-and-shoot is where the first realization came that photography is AWESOME! It wasn't long until a desire arose to step up to the "real thing".
A couple of costly mistakes later (wrong camera purchases), finally the right choice happened and a Nikon D5200 became my first DSLR camera. That was about a year ago, and a lot of flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants made me think that I was worth "my salt" as a photographer. Of course, I started tooting my own horn.
A Rude Awakening! took place when I submitted my photos to ShutterStock, hoping for immediate acceptance and the opportunity to grow a catalog of photos that "everybody" would want to buy. So far, I have attempted their group of 10 photos at a time four different times - and at this point, only one photo has been accepted. Fine - hanging my head in shame and knocked down a peg or two, it is time to take the bull by the horns and do it right!
A video on YouTube by Jason Lanier, entitled "Candid Conversation Between a Professional Photographer and a Photography Student" made me realize it was truly time to stop messing around with AUTO and Aperture Mode only and time to learn to shoot Manual and learn what the heck White Balance really is. I began studying; everything from YouTube videos, classes I had joined, Nikon 5200 for Dummies to my Users Manual. Finally, the ability to operate the camera in manual mode is ingrained in my brain. But, do I know how to shoot world class photos? No way! Do I know how to set perfect white balance - Ummm, nope! A giant step forward has been made - at least giving me the tools and basic knowledge in order to finally begin to learn how to take better photos and maybe, in time, become a Wold Class Photographer! Wouldn't that be something?
"What's this 10,000 hours business?" you ask. Well, my sister gave me a fantastic book entitled "Do It Well, Make It Fun" by Ronald P Culberson. In Chapter 5 he talks about practice, and what it takes to make a person an expert in the field of their choice. Long and short, it's 10,000 hours of practice! Do you know how long that is, even if you practiced 24 hours a day? It's 59 and a half weeks. That's over a year of practicing without any sleep, ever. We know that's not going to happen. So, let's say one practices 4 hours a day, every day. One would reach excellence in 6.86 years. That would make me 67 years old! Whew! How bad do I want this? Really bad, because for those 6.86 years, all the time behind the camera would be great fun for me. It's my passion and I love it. Still, 4 hours a day, every day isn't going to happen.
Now, I can certainly commit to 20 hours a week. That is certainly doable, and that puts excellence a mere 9.61 years away. Does that scare me? No. It's doable, seems like an attainable goal, and I am certain that each and every hour that I put behind me will produce even better photos.
Ready to join in on the ride? Every day, I will make an entry to this Blog. I'll share what time I spent, what I studied, what I learned and about my time behind the camera. At the end of each daily blog, I will keep a record of my hours: 1) behind the viewfinder and 2) in post-processing and study of classes, tutorials and the written word. It will be fun to see the hours pile up and the joys of victories and the agonies of defeats. It all leads to education.
Hours logged today are for the whole week since beginning to learn manual shooting. In the future, the hours logged will be on a daily basis! Let's have fun!
Behind the Camera: 8 hours In Study and Post-Process Mode: 7 hours
See you tomorrow!
©CynthiaG Photography
CynthiaGPix@gmail.com
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