Take more pictures

Someone else mentioned that photography is a great way to remember what has transpired in their life. This is so true for me. I have an extremely bad memory and since the birth of my son I have been photographing every moment of his life. I try and remember those key moments on my own and it really bothers me when I can’t. But as I look at the photos I have taken of him everything floods back and I am overwhelmed at his life.

In the three years since I added this goal I have taken over 17,000 exposures. Thank God for digital or I’d have gone broke in the process.

I’m now shooting semi-professionally and am loving every minute of it. Photography has become a wonderful way to express myself and work around my lack of skill as an artist, but most importantly it is a way for me to capture peoples lives and help them maintain those memories.

I had been frustrated with my Canon G3 primarily for how slowly the auto focus was combined with the shutter delay. If I put the camera on a tripod and did a setup shot I could get great results, but that’s not the kind of photography I do. I like shooting people and events and with the G3 I was continually missing the key moments by fractions of a second.

This was frustrating to be sure and my picture taking dropped to almost nil. In 2005 I took less than 100 photos! That’s when I added this “Take more pictures” as a goal.

Last September I upgraded from my Canon G3 to a Nikon D80. What a difference! Even with the stock 18-70mm kit lens the auto focus is amazingly fast! I love taking pictures again and have shot nearly 9000 frames since then. Now my camera goes with me everywhere and while I often get dirty looks, everyone loves the pictures I send them.

So yeah, I’ve done this, and its worth doing.