Photography Snob

Oh how to start this post… let’s think… Monday my husband called me a photography snob. Should I give a bit of a back story to this? I promise, he isn’t mean or rude or whatever {insert your favorite word here}… I promise. Actually I could almost agree with him sadly! But it isn’t intentional. Let me explain.

Monday was Memorial Day. We were at the lake all weekend working on all kinds of different scuba certifications. Okay I wasn’t, I’m not allowed to dive right now… but I was like the gopher. Anything anyone needed on shore I ran and grabbed for them. And I use ran loosely because we all know my speed right now…

When we went to bed on Sunday night, I wasn’t sure if anyone had said if “we” were diving on Monday or not. All I knew is we were driving in to Garfield (AR) for a breakfast fundraiser for the local fire department. While we were at the Fire house we decided to go over to Pea Ridge where the Civil War battle was fought and tour. Prior to that decision, no one knew we were doing that that so none of us really brought a camera. My FIL had his point and shoot and another girl had hers, the rest of us were stuck with phone cameras. Those of us who like pictures kind of complained. I was one of the complainers, especially because I almost took my camera but at the last minute left it in the RV.

So we got to this site in the tour and I thought it was gorgeous. One advantage of iPhone photo… pano shots!

I’m sure if you’ve been around these parts any time at all you know that I create a collage of photos of hubby and me, one photo per month for the year. So I got to thinking that I wasn’t sure that I had taken a May photo of just us yet and the month is almost over. I’ve kind of been avoiding being in front of cameras lately because I feel like a huge whale.

But I wanted to keep up with the tradition of one photo a month so I made him smile for a photo. These are the 2 photos I got….

The first one as you can see is fairly dark on us and the background is blown out. The second photo we were illuminated better but again, the background is really blown out. It annoyed me. So then my FIL walked over wanted wanted to take a picture of us there too. I then became the uncooperative person. I threw my hands over my face 1) I look like a whale 2) no make up at all which makes it even worse 3) I knew it would either blow one or the other out (us or the background). Okay I didn’t know but I figured based off those previous photos.

Eventually everyone made me take my hands down and he took the photo. I didn’t see it, so I’m not sure how it turned out really.

So here comes the photography snob part….

On our way home, I debated on how to make the shot work. I went through the different settings on my dSLR and how I would have set them, etc. And if this didn’t work, this is how I would tweak it to make it work and I went through this out loud for quite a while. That’s when hubby called me a picture snob. He said that I sit there and study photos and photography and camera settings, etc and sometimes I come off as a photography snob. Especially when I start walking through things I would have done differently etc or why that wouldn’t work with that particular shot. He said I was really bad in the fall of 2009 when I was taking my photography class.  And I should mention at that time I shot in full auto mode. I’ve now learned how to shoot in manual mode.

Here’s the thing… I’m not trying to come off as that and usually I only say these things around him. But I think out loud with the knowledge I’ve acquired trying to decide if I think I know how to make the shot. I’ve even been known to try it if I have the opportunity. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And so I go back to the drawing board and re-think what I was thinking and try again. Sadly I don’t always get those “try” shots though… but that doesn’t keep me from trying to think about it. I see it as a way to grow my photography knowledge and be willing to try things. Trust me, I’ve taken a lot of really bad photos. I’m not trying to be a photography snob but trying to learn and teach myself as I go.

So maybe I am a photography snob, but I promise, that is not my intention. I’m just trying to learn. An art like this is one of those where you are constantly learning and growing as you go.