[Photographer Profile] #26 Myksyk

The idea of these threads is to give some insight as to how some of your fellow photographers operate. Each person invited will write about their photography and provide some examples. This thread will be sticky for about a fortnight (longer if needed) During this time feel free to comment and ask questions. Please allow the subject to answer questions and do not do so on their behalf. While this process is taking place, the subject will approach the next person to be highlighted. Please keep this secret and do not prompt. All normal site and forum rules apply.

I’m flattered to have been asked to help restart this interesting thread by being the next profile here and am very happy to do so. I should qualify everything to follow by explaining that my photographic journey to date has been VERY short indeed and my knowledge base is shallow (but growing slowly).

I consider myself to be in the camp of ‘Fanatical Newbie’. Enthusiastic to the point of irritating obsessiveness … thundering along the photography path as if I’m going to run out of time for the journey. All of this frenetic interest is tempered very significantly by the time available to actually get out and shoot but if I’m stuck at home then I’m probably online either on this forum or doing some e-learning.

I showed no obvious interest in photography up to 2 years ago. My journey to photography can be directly mapped to the birth of my daughter 7 years ago. Over her first year she was snapped at every opportunity with my iphone (3 I think) and the resultant (c.1000) credit-card sized pictures were eventually printed, collated, placed in chronological order and presented to my good wife as a chronicle of our first, amazing, year. The phone snapping continued til she was about 4 years old when someone at work told me about Blurb.com in an off-the-cuff conversation which made me want to do another photobook about her years from 1 to 4. As I got into producing the book it became obvious that the quality of the iphone photos was seriously constraining my ability to print anything bigger than a 3x2. I spoke to my wife about my growing interest in taking pictures of her and the general crappiness of my phone photos. The heel of the jig was a Sony RX100 compact which changed the game altogether for me. At that time I specifically rejected the idea of a DSLR when looking at the compacts because, as I said to my wife, “I just couldn’t be lugging that thing around with me”. However, the compact introduced me to what a quality photo could look like and what a quality camera could do … and within 6 months I wanted a DSLR in the same way I wanted The Lone Ranger’s action man horse for Christmas when I was 8! This was a big sell to my wife … I remember I texted my wife from Harvey Norman’s as I held a Canon 6D in my hand … [I’ve just looked up the testing-the-water text I sent and this was it] …

“… just letting you know that I’m seriously tempted by a September offer in Harvey Norman for a BEAUTIFUL Canon DSLR camera. Interest free payment over 10 months so not painful. Just so you know! Haven’t got it, just saying! You only live once and all that. Yes I know I have a nice camera but so interested in taking the hobby even further. Just saying!”

The response was …

“If you do that it's over. Just sayin like”

I’m guessing that this is a fairly common experience for the married amongst us who like their gadgets! Anyway, I’m persistent and my wife is an angel and about a month later I bought the 6d and a 24-105mm!!!

In fairness to me if I become interested in something it tends not to be a fleeting thing so my wife eventually came around to the idea that my purchase was indeed a good buy, especially when photos of our daughter got better and better. She was completely sold when I gave her a 222-page photobook chronicling our daughter’s life from 1 to 5.

I joined my local Camera Club and, as is my wont, started devouring books, videos and magazines on photography. Early results were predictably mixed as I came to grips with the camera. Essentially they were still all snaps just better quality snaps. Nothing wrong with that, but what I mean is that there was no planning at all around a shot, or even thinking about what to shoot. Neither was there any real ability to make the camera do what I wanted. I was still in auto mode most of the time.

I was delighted when I finally switched to some of the manual controls on the camera and started experimenting. I started thinking about what I might shoot, and where and when. I bought a flash and a second, wide-angle lens and some NDs and became very interested in trying out every technique I read about. I've no particular style yet or specific area of interest. I'm in my 'eclectic' phase!!


and so on and so on! With mixed results as you can see ... but I'm learning.

I’m a read-the-manual guy for everything I’ve ever bought so I knew my camera inside out and when it comes to reading and absorbing I’m a reasonably quick study and the books and videos etc have started to pay dividends. I’m very aware that it will take years to develop the skills to become a good photographer and while I’m very critical of shots I've taken to date I know that better shots are in my future!

With relatively little time to get out over the winter I have devoted time to learning Lightroom and more recently have spent an inordinate amount of time on Lynda.com beginning the hugely absorbing journey of learning Photoshop. I shoot in RAW only now and love the challenge and art of post-processing. I feel I've dipped a toe in there and am ready to dive in over the next couple of years.

That’s my story to date. I have no pretensions about my photographic skill but perhaps my relatively short journey reflects others’ nascent passion, stumbling and anticipation.

I’d really like to acknowledge this forum as being central to my interest in photography and as a fantastic source of motivation, support and learning. It really has been great.