Introduce real me. Chapter # 3 - Photography

Hello Steemians,

I do remember that I promised to tell you about photography in my life.

See the picture?

I knew from my childhood that I am 100% right brain. With boundless imagination. And my imagination never sleeps. Even if I sleep=)
So my it made me pass through all possible ways to express creativity, like drawing, sewing, painting, signing and so on.
Usually all these activities took me for several months and then I dropped them off. But photography...

My love to photography started with dislike. Haha.
I hated to be photographed and I hated it badly. I am not a person who has a collection of portraits of all ages. Not my case.

The situation started to change when I got my first camera, Nikon J1, the first of their line, white and small, the best to start your photography adventure. It is easy, quick and quality of image is pretty high!

It was my birthday present and I wanted it so much, so when I got it, I was caring it with me everywhere. I had no idea about focuses, apertures or ISO and was 100% dummy in art of photography. But I did not need it all. I was in the beginning of collecting memories. Nothing else. But I was behind the lenses, I was happy like a child!

We have made a lot of wonderful pictures together!

Love birds:

And then I got DSLR. Nikon D7200 beast. I named it Cyclops and from that moment the real shooting started.

I knew that it was the right moment to go on, that I have grown up of J1. But OMG, to say that things got much more complicated well, yes. And it was a motivation. I knew nothing about the camera. Nothing about photography as an art. And I started to try. All by testing. All by intuition. Many failures, many misses, I was trying and it was not working, I was trying again and again to get a good pic, to have a story in it, to catch emotions, moments and to have SHARP pictures too.
Portraits. Landscapes. But mainly animals. Animals are till now all for me.

This was my first portrait I have done with Cyclops, it is still one of my favourite pictures:

It is true that I was shooting almost each day. I was practicing so much that during the first 6 months I have made more that 27 thousands of actuations (clicks). And it was only during my free time. Life got easier when Sirius arrived. He is a gorgeous model to photograph.

However I was still relying on my feelings, intuition and chance rather then real knowledge.
But knowledge is important too. And it came to me with Nikon School of Photography.

As I had a constant feeling that I was missing something, like a secret, a key, that will help me to open the new stage for the development, I decided that it was the right moment to invest not in equipment but in my head. And it worked.
Wonderful time. No limits, training, people of the same craziness, tons of theoretical knowledge and immediate practice. I was happy to be there and was happy to learn. And for the first time I felt that photography means much more to me that just a hobby.

I realised that each moment when I raised the camera to my eyes was a precious moment for me. When I was shooting animals and birds, insects or flowers or people, I was loosing track of time, was not listening to others, was completely «out» in another world, where was only me, camera and my «models».

I cannot describe or share this feeling fully, it is too much complicated to put it in the words.

As gorgeous Annie Leibovitz said “I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.”

I feel magic each time I raise my camera. I froze moments. I froze emotions. I can stop time.

Diane Arbus said “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”
When you photograph, you learn to see more than others, those things others do not see. Small details, hidden emotions and tiny beauties too=)

When I photograph, I feel like I am constantly telling stories about this wonderful world.

I believe that pictures must be printed. Yes, we live in the digital era, but printed photos are the stories that are told completely. And that is photography too.
I make postcards with my photos. Most of them you can buy as a poster too.

I am preparing the post about card making, and the link will be available. All hand made=)

The passage from crop to full-frame was so natural for me that I did not even notice it. I did not plan to change the camera, but I came across D3s on a very good price in the excellent condition. And I took it.
I did not use it for a while, I even thought I made a snap decision, till one day it stroke me that D3s was in my arms more ofter that D7200.
I am using both of them today, crop for wide-angle and D3s for all the rest. Always both with me. No need to switch lenses, it saves a lot of time. But it is heavy=)

Want to share some tips with you, maybe some of you will find them useful=)

1. For ladies - no make up if you do not want to be a panda=)

2. Do not press the camera too much on your forehead. During first years of photography I had a constant bruise above the right eyebrow, because I was pressing the camera too much to my eyes or I just hit myself frequently with it when I saw something interesting to shoot and was in a hurry not to miss it. It is really painful, lol)

3. Want better photos? Practise as much as you can. When I was a student, our professor told us to practise on still life genre (Nature mort) everyday. To learn to see the light, to understand the shadows, to see the details that you want or do not want on your photo.

4. Double securing straps are vital. It saved all my cameras from being broken many times. Be careful with your equipment and be attentive to it.

5. Be patient. Do not shoot unconsciously. Think and analyse what you see before pushing the button. And always check your 4 corners of the future photo to avoid all you do not need on your picture. It is true that you can correct in later in PH, but why if you can just shoot better?

Will be glad to hear you stories about photography in your life, feel free to share!
If you have any questions about lenses I use and other equipment, just drop a comment. Will share all I know so far with you=)
Thanks for reading, it's time to go and grab some sleep)

PS:

All my cameras carry its names.
J1 - Vasiliy, D7200 - Cyclops, and D3s - Bob.
It is fun, and useful for sorting the photos: RAW Cyclops - and I know that these are wide-angled, Raw Bob - aha, portrait stuff=)

See u!