[Read Part 1. The Beginning] [Read Part 2. Don’t Drown!] Fails And Hope Back then, in 2015, I suddenly realized, that there will be no other attempts to live. You can’t load the last successful saving and redo something that you didn’t like previously. Time is leaking out. And nobody shouts you about that, nobody shakes you, nobody force you to change something to finally become happy in what you’re doing. Maybe, only a couple of persons who really love you (and also smart and brave enough) can do it if you’re lucky. In my case, such a person became my wife. She made me stop for a second and think about what I really want to do in my life. In fact, it happened in 2012. Three years more we spent to invent the way of changing our lives, to prepare anything for this change, to make up our minds for this most important step, for doubts of course, and… to fail. But as it always shows in inspiring movies, we didn’t give up. We left our jobs and went to the countryside. I became a pro photographer. We tried to earn money as freelancers. And we failed again. That doesn’t mean we weren’t earning anything at all but we couldn’t make our living. And we slowly but surely spent our modest savings. On the other hand, that was a very useful period of time. We had a lot of time to think. We’ve strengthened our connection, we’ve learned to support each other in the best possible way. Finally, we have decided not to give up. Again. We had to step off our way for a while but we still kept our faith. We came back to the city, found new jobs (my one was in product photography), and were still searching for the possibilities. It’s been three and a half years since that moment. And we failed again. But about a couple of weeks ago, we suddenly found one more way, unexpected for us… I have no idea if we manage to make it in our way. Will it happen just like in mentioned inspiring movies? Or we’ll fail again just like it was so many times? Who knows? But even if we fail, we will know that made everything we could to change what we’re unsatisfied with. We will know that at least we tried. [Read Part 1. The Beginning] [Read Part 2. Don’t Drown!] P.S.: Follow me on YouTube,...
Read More
[Read Part 1. The Beginning] Don’t Drown! In fact, I hadn’t really dived into photography till my 36. To my mind, that was that actual moment in life when you take a look back on years behind and realize that it’s about a half of an average lifetime has passed, and you still didn’t have enough time to enjoy what you’re doing. Because your job isn’t interesting you; on your weekends, you feel tired and too lazy to go out somewhere for shooting or even to stay at home and learn some processing technique; only on your vacation, you feel and notice a life, the taste and vision come back to you, and you shoot, shoot, shoot, and then come back home, and… return to your job and, again, have no time (actually, strength and wish!) to process all this bunch of RAW files. If you now are in such a situation, let me give you a bit of tiny advice. If you don’t mind. Just shoot in jpeg with the picture style you like. Then either show the best images you took to anyone you want or find and download free Lightroom presets, install Lightroom on your computer, learn its basics in one or two days, and get the result that won’t be looking dull and boring as unprocessed RAW files. That’s it! Eventually, the most important is to enjoy what you’re doing. If you don’t like to spend much time processing your images, so don’t do it! Don’t turn your favorite hobby into another dull work! Of course, you should understand that doing this way you won’t get outstanding results. Your photos won’t look like the best examples of the World’s best photographers. But they’re living with photography. Every single moment is in it. Even if they don’t photograph or process at the moment, they plan a forthcoming shooting and learn the location. If not so, they think over how exactly, where, and what to shoot. If not all that previous, they study a new technique or some unfamiliar equipment. Even if not all the mentioned, then they just look around and find the interesting object, the good foreshortening, probably simultaneously with some other activity be it just a walk with their dog or washing the dishes, whatever. For them, that’s not already a hobby. That’s their entire life. Read further: Part 3. Fails And Hope [Read Part 1. The Beginning] P.S.: Follow me on YouTube,...
Read More
The Beginning Actually, I wasn’t really interested in photography till my 23. I had a couple of times when I took several photos by that moment but, honestly, it wasn’t serious. It was like “OK! If nobody else wants to take a shot, I’ll do it!” But then it happened that I occurred in the photo equipment store just a couple of weeks after my university graduation. And there I had to study cameras, films, flashes, tripods, and so on. Quite natural to my mind that after I’ve learned the technical basics, I started to interest photography itself, as a human activity, as an art. But the only interest as it is not enough for getting decent photographs. Nowadays, I know and notice, many people think that you became a photographer immediately after purchasing your first DSLR or mirrorless. Why does nobody think that way about music? (Here’s the answer I invented just now: because not a single musical instrument plays music after you give it an introductory pair. And that’s the main trap of digital photography to my mind.) As for me, I’ve stopped to shame call myself a photographer only when I started to earn with photography. Honestly, that’s another extreme. Now I think that even if you’re not working as a photographer but spend much of your free time for shooting, processing, and, of course, learning photography, you are a photographer. Not a pro, yes, but sometimes that’s really better. Frankly, I hadn’t an idea what exactly and how to shoot properly in order to express myself, to transfer what I feel till my 29. That’s when I bought my first camera. It was a Canon EOS 450D, the simplest and cheapest DSLR at that moment. But I didn’t buy a starter kit (my ambition didn’t let me!). I’ve purchased it with Canon EF 50mm/f1.4 USM lens. And I still have it in my bag! Honestly, now I use it quite rarely but when I take it that means I really need it. I think that in some way this limit (I mean the focal length of my sole lens in combination with the camera crop factor) pushed me to find something, to invent the ways of how to show the beauty I saw with the equipment I had. Of course, now I know much more about using almost any lens in nature photography but at that moment it was quite hard for me. I very seldom got the results I really liked. Nevertheless, there are few photos from that time I still love. Read further: Part 2. Don’t Drown! P.S.: Follow me on YouTube,...
Read More