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How I Learned Photography

June 13, 2013

O'Brien Photo > Blog > Personal > How I Learned Photography

I’ve always had an interest in photography but never had the opportunity to own a “real” camera until I met Pat. He had a Canon 30d with a kit lens and I thought it was the bee’s knees! He showed me some of the travel pictures he took with it and I was beyond jealous. He let me try it out a few times and I had no idea what I was doing. Seriously….I asked what button I should press to take a photo and he laughed at me.

Over time, he started telling me what aperture, shutter speed and ISO meant and I was like, “Buddy, I’ll never understand the words coming out of your mouth right now”. Honestly, it didn’t click with me for a very long time. I was taking photos on automatic mode and considering myself the next Ansel Adams…with underexposed and blurry images. I was scratching my head at what I was doing completely wrong. At this time I was on a Flickr group doing a photo of the day. I was just taking pictures around our house and going absolutely crazy in Photoshop with vintage actions. This was the time where vintage looking photos were starting to take off. I just learned what an action was and I went a little crazy buying whatever I could….oh if I could turn back time and tell me to stop!

I remember the day everything clicked for me. Pat had a 50mm lens in his bag that was literally never used. I thought, “Why would I ever not use a zoom lens?” But I picked it up, dusted it off and put it on for some reason. I took one photo and I was stunned at how good it looked! I was like what in the world?! It inspired me to try playing with the settings for the first time and suddenly everything came together. Oh, that bar in the viewfinder actually means something?! From there, I literally read and watched everything under the sun about photography. I was kinda obsessed. We started buying better gear and after a while I started actually taking the pictures I saw in my head.

Basically it took practice, practice, messing up a ton and more practice. Oh, and a patient husband (then boyfriend) telling me everything I was doing wrong. I may have stomped away from those conversations then but now I’m thankful for them. In fact, now Pat sometimes looks at my photos, bows his head and says, “Your photos are so much better than mine.” Of course I tell him it’s not true (which it’s not) but I do get a good laugh about it!
Next, I’ll follow up with how we started in wedding photography! For now, look at these hunks of junk I started out doing!

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