A Photographer's Reflection: Then and Now

February 2000 - Pilgrims In The Ganges

December 2012 - 42nd Street, New York City

This week is one of City Daily Photo's new "festivals," officially called Navel Gazing. It's about our members introspections on their progress as photographers.

My wife and I had a film SLR camera years ago, a Yashica (remember that?). I played around with it, taking one terrible picture after another, no idea what I was doing.

The first consumer digital cameras came out in 1999 and I bought a good one for the time, a Sony DSC-D700, in anticipation of a trip to India and Nepal. It took 1.5 megapixel, 1344 X 1024 pixel images at 72 dpi, and I certainly used auto mode. A wonder then, a toy now. But it was so liberating to have no cost to push the button, to record everything that caught my eye. People liked the results. I was hooked.

Roll forward 13 years. I've had the benefit of some real training at the Maine Media Workshops. Fortune has been kind and I've been able to get professional-quality equipment. Now I use manual or semi-manual modes, know the difference between an f stop and my elbow, use a flash competently (I was so clueless until I took Bobbi Lane and Arlene Collins' courses in lighting and flash technique, such brilliant photographers and teachers) and know what to do in low light at high ISO on a camera that can handle it. And then there were the wonders of Photoshop. My skills are still limited but I know how to make a good photograph better.

The second picture is recent work, taken on an Olympus E-M5 (those little things are amazing). It pulls lots of that learning and experience together. Not that the first shot is bad. People told me I had a good eye. Now photography is my passion. I wish I could get rid of the stupid day job and become a real photographer.

See more photographic journeys from City Daily Photo members here.