A little about Kelly the Photographer, for those who care. Which at this point is probably no one at all, but I need some content here!
I’m a guy, first of all. Let’s just get that out there right off the bat, along with the fact that Kelly is a boy’s name that was stolen for girls. It means ‘warrior,’ okay? How girly is that? But I’m not sore about it, honest.
I guess I’d say I’ve been interested in photography for most of my life, though it’s just been in the last few years that I’ve really gotten into it. I tried film in the old days, and knew I had found something I could sink my teeth into. But film and developing weren’t cheap, so that always put a crimp in things and I had just a nodding acquaintance with the art for some time. When digital came along, I was a slow adopter, and my first few digital cameras were horrendously terrible. Fixed focus, VGA resolution, no LCD, parallax viewfinder, shutter lag from Hell, teensy memory.. just really, really bad, and I’m amazed now that I even bothered, and more amazed that I thought any of the photos were worthwhile. Somewhere in there I took a college photography class, just the entry-level black-and-white film class. It taught me a lot, and I enjoyed the darkroom experience, but I wouldn’t say it set me on fire and for various reasons I wasn’t able to stick with it. Eventually I moved up to a so-called ‘bridge’ point-and-shoot digital, a Fuji S5000. Finally, a camera that offered some control and decent output in the digital realm. It didn’t take too long after that for me to move up to my first dSLR, a Canon 350D. That’s when things really started to click.. er, so to speak. I spent a few years getting the hang of that camera, with lots of practice shooting my little girls and our adventures, and last year I felt ready (and overdue, actually) to move up to a semi-pro camera, a Canon 50D, which naturally remains my main weapon of choice. I’ve also spent some time learning the ins and outs of post-processing, which has made a big difference. And finally I feel ready to produce shots that people might actually pay for–or, more accurately, that I wouldn’t feel guilty about charging people for!
So that’s where we are now. I feel I’m a decent photographer–better than some, worse than many–and I’m trying to improve further while also dipping my foot into the waters of professional photography. At this point (and in the current economy) I certainly don’t intend to quit my day job, as they say. If nothing else, I’d like to put my gear to work paying for itself, and maybe some more toys to boot. And, cheesy though it sounds, perhaps share with my clients a bit of how I see the world. That’s the artsy side of me talking there.
Enough for now. I hope to get my updated website up within the next day or two, stay tuned!
