Yay! I am so excited to be launching my newly designed website, and the home of a Film Girl in a Digital World! For my first post, I decided to write a little bit about myself, and why I wanted to create this space.
It goes without saying, but I am SO passionate about photography. It’s something I’ve loved to do even as a small child. I was that little kid with hundreds of pictures and dozens of photo albums, all organized by holiday, event, pet, family, friends… you name it, I had an album for it! Having a camera was enough to bring so much joy and seeing my pictures developed brought even more joy. That was more than enough back then.
As I got older, I started to realize I wanted to understand how to make my pictures look technically correct. I loved capturing so many memories, but it was always such a disappointment when a great moment turned out blurry, looked too warm, under exposed etc. I needed to learn how to take control of how my images were shot, rather than relying on my point & click to do the job. Let’s face it, point and clicks can be a bit of a letdown, am I right??
It was upon this realization that I decided to take my first photography class. I took the class in college and went on to take several more there. I learned on a film camera, full manual mode (camera’s with auto mode were not allowed) developed my own images in a darkroom etc. This was real deal photography from beginning to end. I had to learn all the ins & outs, all the technicalities. Remember, this was film, there was no “checking my screen” to see if my images looked correct. If I had an assignment, I had to know what my cameras setting meant, how to interpret it’s meter, even calculate my own flash output… yikes! If I didn’t get these things right, I would be sorry when “lab time” came and I had poorly exposed images off my roll.
I learned so much in those classes. Then reality came, I graduated college and started working full-time. I had to put many of my hobbies aside, including my beloved photography. Years went by, and while I still took a lot of pictures, I wasn’t “doing photography.” I fell back into the point and click world because it was easy and fast compared to doing things manually. I just did not have the time for anything else. As a creative, this sucked!!! Not getting to be creative is probably what I came to resent most about the corporate world.
This all changed though when I got engaged. No way was I going to get married, start a new life, go on an awesome honeymoon to awesome places, with a dreaded point & click! I had to get back on track with my photography in order to capture all the moments of my exciting life ahead. At this point, DSLRs were the thing to get. I no longer had access to a darkroom so I figured a DSLR had to be my next camera. I thought it would be so intuitive after all the knowledge I had of manual photography. Little did I know I was in for a shock! DSLRs are an entirely different beast compared to manual film cameras. It was a huge learning curve. I wish I realized sooner how to apply my knowledge and make it work with a DSLR. Over the last 8 years, I have learned so much about DSLRs and the modern day darkroom (aka photoshop) that I have to share my knowledge. If I had better resources, I think I could have mastered my DSLR much sooner. I want one place where I can list all the greatest tips and tricks I’ve learned so you can have them at your fingertips. It should not be so confusing to learn photography. I am always learning, but feel like I have finally figured it out, I want to help you figure it out too. Hopefully more quickly and painlessly than I did!
That’s why I’ve created A Film Girl in a Digital World just for you!
Welcome. I hope you enjoy and can learn a lot from this little blog.
XOXO,
Crisitna
