A Photographic Adventure

I turned 30 today. I treated myself to the day off, and spent part of it walking around my neighborhood getting a feel for my new camera. I have been wanting a D-SLR for years, and I finally bit the bullet and got one on a Black Friday sale. I am so glad that I finally did. The level of detail and color values are incredible, and I am really enjoying composing pictures with this new tool.

My parents gave me my first camera, an old Minolta SLR, for my 12 or 13 birthday. Throughout middle and high school and into college, I enjoyed dabbling in photography - composing shots and working my way through roll after roll of color and black and white film. One school vacation, I made a pinhole camera from an old tea tin and learned how to develop the prints. Then film became harder to find, and quality developers more expensive. I had a couple of point and shoot digital cameras, but missed the color and detail of the film. I delved into painting and drawing as my primary art form.

Two years ago, while living in France, I broke down and bought my first smartphone. I had held out for so long - what did I want with a handheld computer? did I really want to always be accessible? - but came to realize that a map, a translation app, and the ability to pull up train timetables and museum hours would be invaluable. I soon discovered the joys of carrying a camera in your pocket too. Here was the perfect tool to capture and share those small moments of beauty I noticed throughout my day. The crystalline frost on the tips of each blade of grass. The green velvet of the patch of moss beneath the bus stop. The way the setting sun created an ethereal halo around an otherwise mundane building.

Afternoon Light, Railroad Crossing (Gap, France)

The more I had the habit of capturing these visual vignettes, the more I began to notice them in the first place. And the medium began to inform the message, somewhat. Because I primarily published my photographs to Instagram, and then also to Facebook, I began to consciously compose my shots with that square frame in mind. Simultaneously, I was becoming more serious about my painting practice, gaining a formal understanding of color, composition, light and shadow, which I think also contributed to to my understanding of image creation - whether through photography or painting.

Hautes-Alpes at Daybreak (near Sisteron, France)

As you can see from the above two pictures, the image quality produced by my smartphone is not great - passable for sharing to Instagram, but not really suitable for any larger format. I am so excited to continue exploring the artistic possibilities of this new tool.