It wasn't until last Christmas that I broke down and bought myself a DSLR (that is, more than a point and shoot camera). Until then, I'd been using a compact Canon, which took great photos, but was such a pain to use that I rarely bothered. I was forever fumbling for my reading glasses to look at the tiny screen or decipher the markings on the miniscule buttons, and by the time I figured out what was what, my subject would be long gone. (Remember the scene in Zoolanderwhere Ben Stiller talks on a miniature cell phone? That was me with my Canon.) Anyway, counterintuitive as it seems, I decided that a bigger, more complicated camera would be easier to use than the one I had. So I took a deep breath, bought my Nikon, and was immediately overwhelmed by everything I didn't know about photograpy, which was a lot. F-stops? Metering? I was in over my head.
Searching the web for some answers, I stumbled upon Ree's blog, which includes just about everything you ever wanted to know about life on a cattle ranch and . . . photography. It was comforting to read that Ree is self-taught (at least she says she is!). If she could figure out her Nikon, I could figure out mine.
Then I found Bryan Peterson's book and online photography classes and I was on my way. One of the first things I learned was how to photograph silhouettes. Luckily for me, I just came across exposaroonie, which runs weekly (I think they're weekly) photo challenges - and this week's challenge is silhouettes! I'm all set until next week, when I'll have to learn something new.
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