Let the Adventure Begin

Sometime last century, I took a Black and White photography class offered at my high school. I borrowed a camera from a friend, and then learned how to develop the pictures I took in a dark room with chemicals, white trays and fancy lights. It was so long ago, I do not even remember who the instructor was. Nor do I even remember attending a class. I remember “things” about photography, but I don’t remember being taught. Things like aperture, shutter speed, f-stops, exposure and acronyms like SLR and ISO.

My first camera was a Minolta X700. It was similar to the camera I had borrowed from my friend. I bought it a few years after I graduated high school.

I don’t remember what broke on it, but I needed to buy a new camera and switched from the Minolta to the Canon ELAN II. It was hard for me to switch from film to digital as I didn’t thing digital produced the same quality of photo. And it didn’t, in the beginning. Eventually the pixels on the digital were equivalent to film if not better, and I switched from film to digital, purchasing a Canon Rebel XT, mostly because my ELAN lenses could be used.

I’ve always gotten compliments on my photos, but I felt that if I took a thousand pictures, some of them are bound to be good. Digital cameras make that easy. With a memory card than can hold 500 pictures, I can shoot one flower 100 different ways, and one of them is bound to be stunning. The other 99 I can just delete. Plus, with all the digital photography software that is available, I can crop, color, modify this one picture a million different ways, elevating it to super stunning.

I wanted to learn how to use my camera better and take better photos. Several of my friends own the same (or very similar) camera and we talked about taking a class but we could not coordinate our schedules to make it work. Another friend was telling me of a Certificate of Photography offered at the local college. In looking at the required courses I realized that knowing how to work my camera better wasn’t all there was to photography. Lighting and style were important. And if I wanted to make some money in photography, it would be good to know marketing, publication, and creating a professional portfolio.

For this semester, I enrolled in the Basic Photography – Black and White class. Class started off good, until I had to dig out the Canon ELAN II from where every I had retired it.

How quickly we forget! I can’t remember where the battery goes. I can’t remember how to load the film. I can’t remember what all the dials and buttons do. I can’t remember where the manual is. I DO remember how to take a picture though, so once I remember all I forgot, I’ll be ready for class!

My first assignment is

Geometric patterns, Geometric shapes, Circles, Curves