MY Regret; never captured my photography journey as a story blog

Hi, welcome to my first ever blog. I have never written a blog before; I don’t actually know what a blog is; however, I saw one of the tabs on the Wix website I’m creating and I decided to look further into it by asking my good (and intrusive) friend, GOOGLE.

According to Wikipedia, “A blog (a truncation of the expression "weblog")[1] is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts)”

– don’t know what that means.

Before I go any further, let me introduce myself;

Hi, my name is Desmond, I go by Novice Shooter on this site. I’m an amateur photographer trying to do more with my self-taught skills, all thanks to the gurus of the internet, Google and his cousin YouTube. I’ve learned about photography by watching countless videos on YouTube as I could not afford to go to college. I’ve got to say, there is a tonne of practical valuable information and lessons on YouTube to learn from; you just need to be disciplined when navigating that info – something I failed miserably on.

After spending years consuming others’ material, it suddenly hit me; how about showcasing my own stuff, as bad as it might be; so here I am folks. I am looking forward to start a new chapter in my photography journey, a chapter I’m hoping you will join me. Having said that, it hit me, if I had started blogging the minute I got myself a camera, I would have morphed into a good story teller by now; nonetheless, I believe in the saying NO BETTER TIME THAN NOW (caps are for extra emphasis, not to portray the grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr emotion).

I started taking pictures a few years ago and my initial attempts was like this;

Was this picture good? Nah, was I proud of it? You betcha; still am now; why? It shows me how I started. It’s kinda like when you sit down and have a look at your past, good and bad. Technically, that only works when your current situation is not so bad compared to when you first started; if you’re on death row, this is not for you.

With my newfound super powers, I shot everything; I see a flower, I shot it,

I see a figure, I shot it (that’s my missus by the way)

the sun,,,, you get the idea.

After going on a shutter pressing spree, I got a bit tired, lost interest and the camera gathered a bit of dust in the cupboard; you see, I tend to do that a lot; get interested in something, vest a great deal of energy into it without any set aims. That’s a recipe for disaster.

The New Beginning:

One day, the missus and I were spring cleaning and as rules of engagement always dictate, what starts as a clear out, ends up on a tit for tat declutter contest; the missus got hold of the poorly neglected camera for the rubbish pile or new home, whichever way you wanna look at it; I couldn’t part with it; from there on the pledge to always use the camera took hold; a few years later, the Canon 600D EOS, has 2 other siblings, the 70D EOS and the 6D EOS; you got me, I’m a Canon fanatic. On top of the mentioned gear, I have spent many hours learning the trade from mostly Youtube videos; I’ve got to admit, there is a lot of talented individuals out there; I will list some of my masters (sometimes it pays to have more than one master), but the list is endless;

· Tony & Chelsea Northrup

· PiXimperfect

· PHLEARN

· How To Gurus

· Adorama

· Serge Ramelli Photography

· Lovegrove Training

· Irene Rudnyk

· Thomas Shahan

· DPReview

I’m starting to get comfortable with my acquired skills; don’t get me wrong, I’m nowhere near as good as the masters I’m learning from; however I’m going to put a then and now comparison shots below for your critical review. Looking forward to my next blog.