Now that blog post #1 is up it's time to move forward. Since one of the primary purposes of a blog is to tell you more about myself as a photographer I'll try to expand on the small bit of info from the "About Me" page. When I first signed up for the "Darkroom Club" in 7th grade, I didn't really have an interest in photography. I thought the science and process was fascinating and was purely interested from a technical "how it works" perspective. A relative gave me a plastic fixed lens 35mm camera (the kind with simple diagrams of a sun, sun with cloud, clouds, and light bulb for setting aperture) so I would have something to shoot a roll of film. I began by walking around the school campus taking images of the buildings, many times isolating parts of the structures and recording only geometric shapes. As I began to process and print some of the images I started getting really encouraging feedback from some of the art teachers, seemed I had at least a decent eye for composition. This pushed me to try and improve the content and quality of my work. As my interest grew I began saving up and purchased my first real camera, a Minolta X-370 by the time I entered high school, where I spent three years in journalism so I could photograph and print images for the yearbook. This lead to an opportunity to work for a local wedding and portrait photographer during a summer semester off from college. By now I had established decent technical and composition skills and could see that my work had improved. I also felt like I had hit a wall and just couldn't seem to make any meaningful strides in where I was vs. where I wanted to be. As happens with many interests that begin early, life started happening and the amount of time available to spend on photography became limited. This coupled with my frustration at not being able to take my work to the next level had me practicing rather sporadically over the next 15-20 years. I didn't lose interest, just time. Fortunately through determination (or stubborness) I continued reading many books and articles during that time, picking up valuable bits of information along the way that I could apply whenever I was able to pick up a camera. As I began to practice more seriously all those bits started to come together and I could see things taking shape. I had a better understanding of both the technical and artistic sides of photography and could relate to the differences in how the camera records vs. how we see things. I was able to clearly improve on my work from previous years; however, there was still something missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on. That is until I saw something that would finally clarify the missing piece of the puzzle (besides the technical and the artistic aspect) and finally allow me to make the jump to where I wanted to be photographically. At this point I will refer you back to the title of this post, where it says "part 1". To be continued...........