I ♥ Photography

I have always loved photography. Although I'm not formally trained, my father taught my about composition and framing from a very young age, and I've always loved taking pretty pictures.

As a part of my Thirty before 30, I decided that I'd like to take a photography class. This is something I've wanted to do for a while, but had never taken the time to look into, and had never previously had the money to invest in.

To make a long story short, I found a local class that I was interested in, but learned from the website that a DSLR camera was required. The class is not available to students with "regular" point and shoot cameras. I knew immediately that I was willing to make the investment into the camera, so the research began. I picked the brains of a few photographers that I knew, and along with my friend Kara (who is also interested in photography), researched and decided upon the Nikon D5000.

I've had the camera for about two weeks and have really enjoyed experimenting with it. My friend Andrea (pictured below) and I have spent the past two Sundays playing with our cameras, and also experimenting with HDR (which stands for High Dynamic Range). To do HDR, you take a series of three photographs at varying exposures, then combine them in Photoshop to create a final image with greater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. The first photo is the true image, followed by a couple of variances. Click them to enlarge: