On a personal level and in a break from the serious nature of my last few postings, I want to discuss a very serious topic, which is namely this:
Get Out There and Have FUN with your Camera!
In all seriousness, photography has become one of my most-enjoyed hobbies ever, and it is both a fun challenge and just pure enjoyment to get out the camera and gear and go shoot with no purpose in mind but to have FUN!
As it happens, there are 3 places where I’ve nurtured the enjoyment of photography, while learning some of the finer points of both shooting and post-processing images, usually with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop CS6; these days, I’m also experimenting with Nik’s software, such as HDR Efex 2, Silver Efex 2, and a couple others. These 3 places are:
- The Aspiring Photographer’s thread on DentalTown (you have to be a dental professional to be a member)
- The FredMiranda.com Landscapes forum
- Google+
In the year since Google+ launched, it has become one of the biggest worldwide communities of photographers, and it is amazing to see the talent shared there. I do find that FredMiranda.com is a better place to receive constructive critique, because it’s easier to be noticed there if you start a thread, while it’s easy to be buried in the constant stream of photos, and you need to be noticed and circled by enough people to have your images spread, but still…….G+ is great.
The Google Plus One-Year Photowalk
June 30th, 2012 happened to be the Google+ One-Year Anniversary, so a man named Thomas Hawke started the idea of a worldwide Photowalk to be held that day, and the response was phenomenal! Here in Charlotte, NC we had nearly 20 people show up, which was even more remarkable given the 100-105 degree temperatures. Getting together with a bunch of other people, none of whom I’d met previously, ended up being a lot of fun and pushed my photographic limits, as I’ve never done much architectural or street photography. But here are a few shots from that blistering Saturday evening:
If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that I have not placed any watermarks on these photos. Given my recent blog posts, you may wonder why, and there’s a fairly simple reason….I’m just not worried about anyone stealing these images. Naturally, I would prefer that they not, but none of these shots is likely to be worthy of selling prints or otherwise being highly valuable.
But the real message: if you want to get GOOD at photography, and if you want to learn the most about it, get the camera out of the office and go shoot some stuff besides teeth!
Please share links to your own photo galleries, websites, or tell me what you enjoy shooting outside the office in the comments.