February 18 2016

I Want to Become a Photographer

I want to become a photographer. There, I’ve said it. After curating art, design and photography for the last seven years, I have this burning desire to now take on a creative profession. What kind of photographer do I want to be? Not sure yet. Sure running a “lifestyle” blog is fun but it’s not fulfilling enough for me. I’m leaning towards “family-style” photography but not the kind where the everyone’s dressed up in white shirts and blue jeans and they’re stiffly posing on the beach. I’m talking Kate T. Parker, Elena Shumilova, Hideaki Hamada, and Aya Sakai.

Like many people, I often take out my iPhone to snap shots rather than lug around my heavy DSLR. Sure the iPhone can take great pics but there’s always something to be desired. That’s why I’ve made it my goal to really learn more about my camera (Canon 5D Mark II) and I’ve decided to teach myself post processing software, that is Adobe Lightroom. I have an older version (Lightroom 4) but it’s all that I need to edit my shots.

So far, I’ve learned Lightroom from two sources, Skillshare and two books I bought on Amazon from the same author, Tony Northrup. The first one is called How to Create Stunning Digital Photography and the second is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Video Book: Training for Photographers. What I love about these books is that if you buy the Kindle versions (which go for $9.99), there are links to really informative videos. Tony, along with his wife Chelsea, give great tips on everything from how to use your camera to how to set up a good portrait shot. If you don’t want to commit to buying the books, just yet, you can first check out their YouTube channel.

Here’s my Lightroom grid and then here are some side-by-side before and after Lightroom shots.

lightroom-02

dogs

parker

logansmile

ace

boys

graffiti

light

I know I’ve got a long way to go before I can even begin to think of myself as a “real” photographer, but this is the first time, in a long time, that I’ve been this excited about anything.

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