A New Hobby

When I first bought my SLR, I really just wanted to take nicer pictures of the kids. I knew that a bigger camera with a larger sensor and better optics than a point and shoot would yield much higher quality photos, and it has. However, my camera and photography in general has become my new obsession.

It's actually a very rewarding hobby when you think about it. There are a lot of people to talk to and get tips from, I have several friends who consider themselves to be amateur photogs. Whenever I get a nice shot I can upload it to Flickr or even print it out and hang it up.

Photography also gets me to exercise the right half of my brain, which I don't call upon all that often. Of course it's a fairly technical craft that involves a lot of work on the computer, so I'm not too far out of my comfort zone.

There are many great resources to learn from. I've read two books on photography: The Digital Photography Book and Understanding Exposure. I've also been listening to the This Week in Photography podcast and watching the Photography 101 video podcast. Where does someone with two young children find the time to watch/read/listen to all this? Now you know why I prefer riding the bus to driving to work.

I had an excursion to Alki Beach for some pure photography fun that went pretty well, though I haven't really had the opportunity to duplicate that success. I'm not getting an ego (yet), I feel like those pictures were decent for someone who didn't know what he was doing, not compared to what a real photographer could do.

So it is fair to say I've found myself a new hobby, which is great. Plus I've accomplished my original goal of stepping up my game with taking pictures of the kids.