I really like to be creative, no matter what I am doing I always want to try to do it better, be that coaching soccer, writing, cooking or taking photographs. Photos and video have been the latest passion, and the internet is such a great learning tool to delve into topics of interest.  In my last post I talked about learning and progressing in photography and recently that inspiration has moved to a new level.  A close friend of mine who is a great photographer decided to help my progress and get me a DSLR as a gift.  Yes, I have amazing friends.

So I decided to properly explore the aspects of aperture, shutter speed, f-stops and ISO’s. I know from experience I have pretty much always steered clear of these settings, but have actually been surprised how straight forward they are. Basically it is all about light, and ensuring you capture enough, but not too much, not always easy, but intriguing trying to navigate.

I couldn’t convince my wife that spending lots of dollars on a camera was a smart move, so when I received the Nikon D5600 as a gift it was fantastic. It gives me the camera and opportunity to convince my wife of the difference that comes with a quality camera is massive when compared to a point and shoot camera that I have always explored.  So I decided to take a pictures of her cat, and sure enough this one picture of his piercing eyes did the trick to convince her.

What interests me most is travel photography, and that led me to Bob Krist who explains that a photo should tell a story of what a place feels like, not just what it looks like.  I thought that was a meaningful explanation, and I particularly like how he describes it.  He elaborates of the need for travel photos to have good color, good composition, beautiful light and a story telling moment.  I recommend checking out his video if you can spare a hour.

I’m off to England, Argentina, Peru and Uruguay later in the year, and I am really looking forward to exploring what I am learning about doing photography better, but before all that I decided to play around with the camera at the golf course and separately a forest garden.

Hopefully this picture of the idyllic Gold Mountain Course is better than my golf. 🙂

The trip to the forest garden allowed me to try and explore the new camera, and shooting in RAW I find really helps, another thing I learned just recently. I know I have lots to learn when it comes to improving my photography, but I am happy just exploring the great photos that I can find a way towards.