Let me preface this post by saying that I am by no means a professional photographer (at least not yet). I do not get paid to take photographs (at least not yet). I am entirely self taught and you can either choose to agree or disagree with my views on photography (because Lord knows that everyone’s a critic).
Now that we got that out of the way let’s move on to the point of this post.
As I stated in my introductory post, I acquired my current camera roughly 5 years ago today. To be honest, when I picked out my camera I didn’t know anything about cameras and made my choice solely on numbers (number of megapixels, price, etc.) Starting out I knew nothing about photography. The exposure triangle (let alone the concept of what exposure meant), ISO, aperture, and shutter speed were foreign concepts to me, and I could barely operate my camera (because honestly who reads the manual?). I shot in full auto / one of the pre-programmed auto modes and only shot JPEGs (not that JPEGs is necessarily a bad thing, but that can be a discussion for a different time). The little bit of editing I did do mostly consisted of me turning up the brightness on my photos because I didn’t have my exposure set properly (which admittedly was difficult to do since I was shooting at night with the kit lenses).
For starters let’s take a look at the photo I posted in my introduction:
1991 Mazda Miata (NA6) - Industrial Park (2014)
From an initial glance the above shot looks pretty good. The colors are decent, the exposure isn’t terrible, and the framing is decent. However there are a few things that stand out in this picture as not ideal. For starters, the shadow of my tripod is in frame and you can see a lens flare coming from the lights (no polarizer was used). The building lights / street lights are also a bit too bright.
Maybe I’m starting to sound too harsh on myself, so I’ll show another shot from the same night as the above photo to show that not every picture I took was terrible.
1991 Mazda Miata (NA6) - Industrial Park (2014)
I guess what I’m trying to say is that early on I would spend a lot of time taking photos hoping I would get a decent shot whereas nowadays I know how to adjust my camera settings to ensure I get a good photo.
Moving on there would be a large gap in my photography “career." School and extracurriculars took up the vast majority of my time and I was too afraid to go out and shoot photos. However at Christmas of last year I was gifted my then “dream” lens by my father and now I felt obligated to dust off my camera and take photos again.
Inspired by a friend of mine that decided to start up his own car photography page (you can check him out on Instagram at @keithkars) I decided to try my hand at car photography again. (Side note, it does help to have friends that are into photography and go shooting as a group.) Armed with my new Nikon 18-300mm lens, Nikon D3200 body, and a group of friends I attended the 2019 OC Festival of Speed where I saw some amazing cars. This time I did a little bit more research into my camera (actually read the manual for once) and switch from full auto to the “programmable” auto mode (or “P mode” as most cameras call it). The P mode auto adjusts aperture and shutter speed based on the user’s selected ISO. While not full manual, P mode is still decent enough as a first step into getting out of full auto and into full manual (IMO). I was still shooting in JPEG, but even still I was able to get some incredible shots such as the one below (and is visible in my portfolio):
Koenigsegg Agera HH Badge - 2019 OC Festival of Speed
I continued shooting JPEGs in P mode for the next couple of shows / shoots I did until I decided to try my hand at editing. After purchasing some professional grade editing software (Affinity Photo) I decided to step up and shoot in RAW (since I now had the software, might as well take full advantage of it). Below is a picture I took when experimenting with shooting in RAW and processing in Affinity (still P mode):
Ibanez S520EX - Apartment Balcony (2019)
I was in the “big leagues” now. Shooting in RAW, post processing my photos, and not shooting in full auto. I felt more inspired now and was going to at least one or two car shows a month and shooting photos such as the ones below:
BMW 2002 - 2019 Car Con
Ferrari 348 Challenge Badge - Long Beach GP (2019)
Pagani Huayra BC - Cars and Copters (2019)
I was proud of my shots and began posting a photo everyday on social media. No longer afraid of going out and shooting pictures, I had found something new that I enjoyed. However, I felt like I was still lacking something.
I decided to do some research into photography in order to truly understand what those big words such as “aperture” and “exposure” meant. I found two Youtube channels that were extremely informative (Jared Polin and Kai W) and figured out how to read the camera’s light meter and adjust the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to ensure that the exposure was either perfect or +/- one stop. My RAW processing became faster thanks to the creation of presets in Affinity. After all that, I can now “proudly” say that I am shooting in full manual now. I have recently added a Nikon 35mm F1.8 so I can get those shots with rich “bokeh” in the background such as the one below:
McLaren 720S Badge - Pitstop Sunday (7/14/2019)
Which brings us to today. As of right now I am now more excited about photography than I was at the beginning of this year. I still have a lot to learn and am beginning to explore different mediums such as street photography. There is a lot of new camera gear that I have my eye on, but unfortunately they all require money. For now, I will continue to hone my skills and work around the limitations of the gear I currently have.
I hope you all enjoyed this long-winded post about my current journey through photography. Hopefully this inspires you to pick up a camera and shoot some photos. Like always, feel free to leave a comment.
Thanks,
J. Stitt