Amateur Gear.

So, I should probably let you guys know what I'm running.

• Nikon D3000 - 10.2mp
• 5x 4gb SDHC cards
• 2x Card Readers(incase of failure, card readers are cheap)
• Macbook Pro, i7 w/ Photoshop CS5/Lightroom/8gb ram
• 1tb ext HDD
• 7 spare batteries(I travel alot)
• Standard kit 18-55mm
• Tamron 70-300mm
• Nikkor 50mm f1.8
• Hoods for all 3 lenses
• UV, Polarising and FLD filters for all lenses
• 2x eBay speedlites (variable intensity, remote flash, and slave mode, 4xaa per flash)
• 24x AA batteries
• Various gels for said flashes
• Flash ring (attaches to tripod mount on underside of camera, and will hold a flash on each side of the lens, fired by 2xflash cables off hot shoe)
• Tripod
• Cleaning gear
• Roll of gaffer tape.

That's what I carry when I travel, or when I know I'm going to be taking photos.

Normally I just carry a reasonable Point and shoot in the car.

And so you progress.

When you realise you really enjoy it, you start trying to be more creative. You learn how light works, aperture, depth of field. You start to see that colours in focus not only look amazing but colours out of focus can really but a gorgeous frame around something you want people to look at.

So you experiment. For me, I take my camera to work everyday, with 2 lenses. At lunch time I walk around the grounds and take photos of things. With today's SD cards you can take 500 photos then just dump them onto any one of your enormous hard disks.

On this particular day, I'd just recieved my new lens. It's not special by photography standards, but it's special to me. It's a Tamron 70-300mm.

Beginnings - Pt 2.

So, you get a shiny new DSLR and you take normal camera photos or people at parties and shit like that, but what is the point of having a really nice camera when you can do all that with a 100 dollar Kodak EasyShare?

There comes a time if you enjoy using your camera you start to get creative. I'm still trying to get my creative juices flowing -- I spend alot of time looking at books and photo blogs and things like that. I try to draw inspiration from what I've seen, this partly helps me understand the concepts of creative photography.

learning to see things through a lens is so different to just having normal vision. Its something that captures a moment in time, and is static. It never changes. To be able to capture someting that gets someone's eye is a special thing.

Which brings me to This picture. This was my first attempt at actually being creative.

This source of water is there the pipeline that runs from Mundaring in WA to Kalgoorlie ends. It provides the Goldfields with water. It takes approx 2 weeks for the water to make its journey, and even after that, the water is still cool when it comes out. Here where this picture is taken, is where it sees the world outside the pipeline for the first time.

Beginnings.

So, I did photography in high school. I took a pretty keen interest in it, developing my own film in the darkroom etc. wierd angles, everything a kid in high school would normally do. Then i found computers. everything else stopped.

Recently I've been plagued by back problems, and I've been forced to find something to do that doesnt involve me sitting about all the time. So I started taking photos.

With that, here is the obligatory beginner shot of the city.

Intorduction

So. I've recently started taking photos and I've decided to document my learning of the art of photography. I love being challenged and here I'll show some of the highlights(and definitely some of the lowlights, blunders and fuck-ups) I've made along the way. Enjoy.

L