Ask Me Anything - Brendo09

[Brendo09]

So, here's your chance to pick my brain.

I'm happy to answer anything, just don't expect to be dazzled.

Some base assumptions first...

1 - I'm a rank amateur
2 - I have much to learn
3 - I'm enthusiastic in bursts

Fire away.

[ricktas]

who inspired you to gain an interest in photography?

[piczzilla]

Brendo, I hope you don't mind some basic questions - I'm kinda new here and am yet to shake hands with everyone


1) When and how did you start photography?
2) What photography genre do you enjoy/do most?
3) What's your most preferred shooting gear/setup and why?
4) What's your PP software of choice?

[Cage]

What are next Saturday's winning Lotto numbers ?

[Brendo09]

who inspired you to gain an interest in photography?

I came from two parents who had next to no interest in anything arty. From this all four of us kids have artistic interests. My younger sister is into home crafts and hand made jewellery. My elder sister is into painting and making of furniture useful again. I was into music and instruments, but it was my elder brother who took good photos.

It was specifically a photo be took at my father's second wedding, of my daughter and two nieces climbing a part and rail fence, in the sunset time, from behind, in sepia that made me realise how powerful photos can be.

That image was there for all of us, but none of the rest of us saw it, and he captured a moment in time that will never be repeated, and in it all the joy and wonderment of being a kid and climbing a fence with your cousins, and it completely ignored all the artificial pomp and ceremony that the wedding (180 degrees from this image) laid out.

That caught me.

I look up to my brother in many ways, yet we're very different people. This was a solid and tangible time that I could say he inspired me.

I didn't buy a decent camera until Christmas 2015, but have managed to wheel and deal to the point where i could give him my D5200 and s couple of lenses, on the hope that he continues to be an inspiration.

[Brendo09]

Brendo, I hope you don't mind some basic questions - I'm kinda new here and am yet to shake hands with everyone

1) When and how did you start photography?

I travelled to the Papua New Guinea highlands on a trip for a fortnight to help build a hangar for an air service that my church runs back in 2006. Prior to this trip I had a camera with a little built in zoom that I thought was pretty good, but I never really paid much attention to the output, it was just something to play with.

I bought a Fuji Finepix s5200 for this trip, and remember coming home pretty disappointed that I had taken a couple of hundred photo's, and none of them were Wow photo's, just pictures of the trip and the people.

I made a conscious decision after that trip to make more effort to think how the picture would look once it was taken, but then 18 months later my Finepix just didn't turn on one morning, and given that my wife and I had camera's on our phones, we went into default mode.

It wasn't until I bought my d5200 (on a stab in the dark terribly low ball offer that was enthusiastically accepted) that I thought about trying to do something decent again.

2) What photography genre do you enjoy/do most?
This is a bit of a tricky one. I like to take photo's of landscapes, I think partly because it means I've had to spend some time actually in the landscape to start with. Being outside is great for getting all the noise out of your head.

I am trying to take photo's of birds, but I don't have the time to sit in one spot and wait for the birds to come to me, so I'm bashing around the bush, scaring them out of their hiding places and then taking out of focus pictures of them flying away, or sitting on a branch 40m from me, with the lens all the way out to 500mm and ending up with something not overly good.

I like to look at portraits, but not the set up portraits, more the ones of someone on the street who you never know their name, or any of their story, but at the same time you can see their story in their face, and their stubble, or their eyes, or their skin. Real people in s frozen split second in time. It's beautiful, but so hard to do.

3) What's your most preferred shooting gear/setup and why?
I have a Nikon d7100, on which usually lives my Tamron 17-50 f2.8 without the Vibration Control. I rarely use a flash. I like it because it's a good solid camera that fits my large hands well, I have learned where all the buttons are and what most of them do, and I think I know it well enough to use 30% of it's potential. The lens suits what I take most, my family at home and at play, and landscapes. I do have a 150-500mm Tamron lens that I use for trying to get birds, but I get frustrated when I have it on and there's a lovely tree (and I do love trees, they're beautifully structured things) and I can't get far enough away for a good shot at 150mm.

So mostly the gear I use is due to laziness, and lack of preparation for all the scenario's that might happen in a day.

4) What's your PP software of choice?
I generally use the Win10 photo editor. I would love to have the time to sit and spend an hour or so touching up my photo's to get them to look the best but I don't have time. My current job is a killer, and I have 4 kids (5th coming in Sept) and heaps to do. I did buy an annual subscription to Lightroom (and the rest of the Adobe package) but I've barely opened it up.

I also have a philosophical problem with a photograph that looks great, but doesn't accurately represent what was in front of my eyes. I've used PP to make the red soil look richer, or the green leaves look lusher, or to remove something from the picture, but then it's more leaning towards an artistic image, rather than a real life image. It's a fine line, and probably the start of many great debates, but I definitely lean on the Straight Out Of The Camera side of the spectrum.

Thanks for the questions.

- - - Updated - - -

What are next Saturday's winning Lotto numbers ?

I keep wanting to win Lotto, but I'm too tight to buy a ticket.

That and when I did I would get very excited then miserable when I got one or two numbers and no money. I can't handle the emotional roller coaster, so I got off.

However, I do think this could be my week, so mark these down.

4, 11, 17, 26, 31, 42 and the supplementary numbers 21 and 33

Good luck.

[ricktas]

What are next Saturday's winning Lotto numbers ?

45 37 40 33 27 32 : supps 22 38