About me:
I'm a relatively new and upcoming professional photographer. My passion is wildlife, landscape, macro and astro photography in that order. My portfolio also includes some portraiture, wedding, real-estate and pet photography.
I've been interested in photography ever since I can remember. My first camera was of course from the film era (Kodak Brownie Bullet) and I can remember going to the field museum in Chicago and burning through loads of film and flash bulbs. I certainly owned my fair share of Kodak 110 Instamatic camera's of the 1970's. In 1985 I bought my first 35mm camera. It was the Canon AE-1 Program which I still own and maintain to this day. This camera was heavily used until I bought my first digital camera in 2002. The Canon Powershot A80 was a whopping 4 mpx with digital zoom and was around $800 at the time. I also still own and maintain this camera but don't shoot with it anymore. In 2008 I bought the Canon VIXIA HF11 video camera which was the first video camera to solely use SD memory and was HD capable. I didn't use this camera all that much as the video editing software and the computers it ran on weren't all that capable. In 2015 I bought the GoPro Hero4 in preparation for some snorkeling in the Caribbean. Even though the camera was difficult to use underwater and the battery life was very poor it met it's purpose. I actually still own the camera just in case I would ever get into some situation where I would need something in a wet environment. However, I consider the camera total junk for just about any other purpose. I'm sure there are way better solutions in the market today.
In 2019 I decided I could finally afford a decent mid range camera as my interest in photography had been renewed. I have no idea what really sparked this interest but I bought my Canon EOS 80D and started really getting educated on getting the most out of my camera. At that time I had zero interest in post processing and thought it was nothing more than fakery. This camera came as a kit with the Canon EF-S 18-55mm/3.5-5.6 STM Zoom and Canon EF 75-300mm/4.0-5.6 USM Telephoto Zoom. That 18-55mm lens is such an underrated lens for the money ($100). By mid 2020 I was already getting the itch to take my photography to a higher level. I'd already invested in quite an assortment of quality lenses and other accessories. In preparation for our 2020 holiday travels I purchased the DJI Mavic Air 2 drone which I also shoot with today. I began to study more and more about composition, the art of photography, post processing and developing my own unique craft as Christopher O'Donnell calls it. My impending retirement from my profession of 40 years as a software engineer was imminent. I would stay up late at night spending every spare hour studying photography. In the meantime my interest in my day job was waning. My retirement from software engineering occurred on April 30th 2021 right on schedule. And my decision to take my photography to the professional level occurred on that same day.
Since that day I've been quite proactive shooting a lot more even though I still have quite a lot of photos and videos from our 2020 holiday vacation to process. I'm busy now building my portfolio and displaying that through this website and social media platforms on Facebook and Instagram. In the meantime I've upgraded my camera to the Canon EOS R5 with all it's inherit issues. I'll continue to shoot with my EF lenses until I win the lottery and can afford the the RF series lenses for the full frame/mirrorless format of the Canon EOS R5. I prefer shooting with natural light really like shooting long exposures. Today I shoot only in raw format and post process the best of the rest. I'm quite proficient in Adobe Lightroom and currently learning ON1 Photo Raw.
These are some of the most influential photographers that continue to help shape my creativity, the technical aspects of getting the most out of my camera, post processing and the business side of photography. All of these photographers are great teachers in their own right. They’ve all given back a lot to the photography community and it’s practically a full time job just keeping up with their current content. What I also like about each of them is that they also make amateur mistakes like showing up at a shoot with a single battery not fully charged or shooting a scene with the wrong camera settings. As artists we never really stop developing our craft. We are all equally human after all.
Here are some YouTube channels that have really helped me with my in camera work and my editing.