A new adventure begins

 Izildur here reporting :)

It's always nice to start a new adventure, wether it's reading a book, playing a new video game or starting an exercise routine, investing your time in something you like is a great thing, at least that's what everybody says.
This time it was time to start something in the amazing world of Photography.  Like Zero I've always liked to take pictures but never tried anything out of the ordinary; of course if I was taking pictures of my family I tried to keep everyone inside the frame, avoid mutilating limbs or heads and keep the camera steady to avoid blurry photos, and that was as far as I would go. Sometimes the situation allowed for good pictures depending on the lighting and how well the Auto Mode selected the proper settings, Auto Mode was my good friend  it helped me get through tough times hehehe except for low light situations where the flash comes off and it usually produces some nasty results.

It turns out that in 2003 we lost our camera from that time during a trip to San Francisco (I don't remember the brand but it was an Advantix System), we went to have some very good Thai food downtown but when it was time to leave we left the tip and our camera there.. duh! I suffered the loss of that camera, not only because of the price but because before that I always used small 110mm consumer low end cameras that produced ok results.. sometimes :P
To make up for that lose we went digital and decided to invest some money on a nice camera that would also allow us to go a little beyond consumer grade cameras but not all the way to amateur or pro SLR so we found a nice deal on a camera released by Canon a year before on the "pro-sumer" level..   the Powershot G3.
At that time we thought we could take some photography lessons and learn a little more now that we had a 'better' camera and so we started taking pictures, lots of pictures using our good friend the Auto Mode; time went by and we never pursued the Photography lessons, we used this camera as anyone would use a regular point and shoot ( what a waste).

Fast forward to recent times.. 7 years later I find myself traveling constantly to Florida on business with a group of consultants and then my friend Zero joins the group and starts bringing his camera along; we accompanied with him a few times to the beach to take pictures and during those trips we had a few conversations about Photography where I asked about some basic concepts I remember reading in my camera's manual but never understood (exposure, shutter speed, aperture, etc..). So after finding my camera again (I guess I can write about that story later on) I found myself also taking it with me to FL and taking pictures on the beach targeting everything that moved.. well not exactly everything.

In at the end it was really Zero who helped me remember my interest in photography and he also helped me understand all those questions I had back in way back in 2003 when I was a proud owner of a brand new G3 with no idea of how to use it whatsoever.
I guess the phrase 'better late than never' fits well in this story, and so here we are  writing a blog about our Photographic adventures, trying to capture what we learn and what might work or not for us, in essence dreaming up about Photography.

Oh btw feel free to make comments about what you see here, honest and constructive criticism is a great tool to learn.

'till next time!

Izildur

First post

Greetings!

This is my first post in my first blog. I've always respected bloggers, and I've admired from afar the people that put their time to try to share their experiences with the world but I never thought I would be one... actually, I still have my doubts.

The idea of committing time to a blog it's still weird to me. I barely have time for anything. For so many years now I've always lost... I mean, invested =) all my mornings in either school or work (sometimes both) and after it's been an array of passive activities like watching TV, surfing the web or playing video games... until recently. Now I've got a new hobby to fill in the blanks between work and sleep time: Digital Photography.

I've always liked taking pictures... never did take it too seriously though... and it was mostly something I did while on vacation or just for important occasions. About a year ago I got a DSLR as a present... along with a suggestion from my family to try to do something more fulfilling with my afternoons than finding new ways to sit on the couch or memorizing all the dialogs from the same TV re-runs I kept watching so... I went for it and here I am; a year later, thinking I can squeeze in more time in my afternoons to also try to post in a blog to share some of the "interesting stories" that have come up from the photo excursions I've done.

This blog is not only about me. It's actually the idea of my good friend Izildur (obviously, not a real name) who was the one that talked me into thinking I could find enough time to post photo-stories online... only time will tell if he was right... this might be my only post for months or might be the beginning of a new addiction that will keep me wishing for 34 hr days so I can get more than 4 hours of sleep daily so... here goes nothing.

'till next time there's nothing on TV (or I've got a memorable photo-story and time to post it).

ZERO