Tuesday in Texas - Also, Me the Photographer

by Kris B.

In many ways it seems funny to be writing about being “a photographer”  I think of myself more as someone who loves taking pictures.  Photographer sound so professional and I definitely am not a professional, nor do I want to be.  For me, taking pictures is a hobby, something fun, a spiritual discipline, something that is far removed from what I do professionally.  Aside from all that, because I am legally blind, with vision that can not be corrected, photography may not even seem like a realistic hobby!

My first camera was a Kodak 110 Instamatic with those blue flash cubes.  I know some of you remember those.  Right?  Please, someone!  I was in the sixth grade and working on the Girl Scout photography merit badge.  I don’t know that I was particularly interested in photography, in that  I knew nothing about it.  I was primarily interested in accumulating as many merit badges as I could.  The dad of one of my troop members led the teaching.  I remember having a lot of fun and at the end of our time together, he said to me, “You have a good eye for photography.”  “Good” and “eye” were never words that were used about me; I had no idea at that time what he was really saying.  I did, however, continue to take pictures from that point on.  I always had some kind of camera and snapped pictures somewhat inconsistently while I was in high school and college.  I failed, however, to keep up with picture taking when my girls were little.  Looking back, that is one of my biggest regrets.

When the kids were in middle school and playing lots of sports, I decided to start taking pictures again.  My husband bought me an N60, my first Nikon camera, still film.  I took pictures, but I had no idea what I was doing.  I shot on Auto exclusively.  With lots of luck, I took some decent pictures, but luck was all I had.  Developing film was expensive so “practicing” with multiple shots was not practical for me.  Then came digital cameras!!  Because my now ex-husband was a technology geek, he was all for getting me a digital camera, a Nikon D70.  I thought I was in hog heaven, though I still had no idea what to do with all of the buttons.  I had, however, by this point been through many years of graduate school and learned the merits of reading the manual.  Still, I was working mostly by trial and error, a lot of error, but at least now they were cheap errors! Slowly I learned.  For our 25th anniversary, only months before we filed for divorce, lol, my husband gave me a D300.  The new camera and a time of transition in my life is when I became seriously interested in improving my photography skills.

The first serious picture taking I did was for a local theater company.  I took the promo shots for shows as well as stills of the actual productions.  That was a lot of valuable on the spot training!

Denton Community Theater - The Laramie Project May 2007

Denton Community Theater - The Laramie Project May 2007

Fast forward a few years and I discovered Capture Your 365.  In the fall of 2012 I took the Katrina Kennedy’s Capture Your life Through the Lens class; that was exactly what I needed.  I learned how to use most of the buttons on my camera and had some good knowledge to go along with my luck. In January of 2013, I joined the Capture Your 365 community and began taking a photo a day.  It is hard to believe that for 1100 days straight, I have a photo to document my life.  They are not all technically good, or interesting, or even particularly meaningful, but they are my life.  They are not all happy or pretty.  But again, neither is life.  As I look back, I am amazed at how vivid the memories are with each photo.  I can put myself right back on the day, in the moment in which they were taken.

I now shoot with a Nikon D600.  My “go-to” lens is a 24-70mm.  That said, right before Christmas, this lens and my tripod had a “falling out,“ literally.  I sent it back to Nikon for an expensive repair; however, the repair is less than replacing the lens.  So, I have been using other lenses lately, which is good thing.  I love my nifty-fifty and 105mm macro lenses.  I also have a 70-200 zoom, which I don’t use as often as I probably should. My newest lens is an 85mm lens that I really like for portraits.

105mm macro lens

Speaking of portraits, I never thought that I would enjoy taking portraits.  There was a time when I didn’t want any people in any of my photos.  Yes, I am an introvert, but even I know that this is taking the whole introvert thing way too far!  Even in scenes where people were a perfectly natural entity, I would wait until I could shoot and not include a single human being.  Now, I enjoy taking portraits, thanks in a large part to having taken Katrina’s Portraits class during 2015. 

50mm lens

I have even gotten better over the last three years about the dreaded self portrait.  Though in most situations I am not a control freak, I do like being in total control of the photos of me.  If they are self portraits and I am both in front of and technically behind the camera, I can execute them my way.  I can take as much time as I need; I can delete the awful shots before anyone else sees them; and, I can try different things without feeling self conscious.  This is the only way that any photos of me get taken.

January 1, 2014

I also never thought that I would be taking photos of food.  I love to cook and I love to eat, but the thought of photographing food never crossed my mind.  To me, bad food photography is some of the worst bad photography there is.  I was not sure that I was up to the challenge of making food look good.  Tracey and I have a joke about the “brown food photos.”  Should we ever write a cookbook, there will definitely be some discussion about brown food, possibly in the title. lol!  Once you get beyond vegetables, think about how much food is brown!  Now think about how to make it look appealing in a photo.  It is harder than you might imagine.  Add to that the fact that my kitchen is awesome for cooking and terrible for photography.  There really is no good light source at all!

My dark kitchen! - this was taken mid afternoon!

 I have been known to travel all over the house with plates of food in my hand trying to find the best light at any given time of day.  Outside is not off limits either!

Because I was a writer before I became seriously interested in photography, I sometimes have a hard time letting my photos speak for themselves.  I enjoy fitting images and words together.  Many of my photos contain quotes.  With regard to my Photo of the Day images, the text that I choose to include has something to do with my thoughts or feelings on that day.

I am lucky that my husband and my girls are supportive and cooperative when it comes to me and photography.  

Weber - January 2013
CY365 Practice Class

Erin - July 2015
24-70mm lens at 50mm lol!

Brooke - December 2015
85mm lens

There are times when they have had enough and then I turn to the animals and my ever cooperative collection of Lego minifigures.  

So tomorrow will be day 1101 of a photo a day.  I now enjoy photographing both people and food.  And, I have a wonderful friend in Tracey thanks to photography.  I am still struggling to figure out what my personal "style" is with regard to my photography.  I am happy to say that this, however, is one of the best struggles of my life!

105mm macro

Thanks for coming along with us on our journey of food, friendship, and photography!