Exposure's summer vacation is continuing (weather is beautiful, wish you were here in lovely Louisville, Kentucky) as is comment spam. So for the foreseeable future comments have been turned off. I still love hearing from you though so please use the email address to the right if you have a comment, topic suggestion or bit of news you'd like to share. Look for Exposure to return to a regular publishing schedule sometime around the middle of August.

Hope you're enjoying your summer,
Michelle

I just got a few more Vox invites to hand out. This time however they aren't free. To get one of these hot off the grill Vox invites you need to tell me one thing you'd like to see here on Exposure. A specific tutorial? An in-depth slr lens explanation? More links to cool photo gadgets, how non-serious photographers can make their snapshots better, etc. Just one thing you thing you'd like to see here. I know a lot of you looking for the Vox invites have just stumble here through Google. Take some time, look around, see what you think is missing and tell me so and I'll hand the Vox invite right over. You can either leave a comment here or email me directly.

Tags: vox

Main Entry: ex·po·sure
Pronunciation: ik-'spO-zh&r
Function: noun
1 : the fact or condition of being exposed : as a : the condition of being presented to view or made known

4 : a piece or section of sensitized material (as film) on which an exposure is or can be made

Hi, I'm Michelle and I really like photography. I've always liked it as a viewer and a consumer but over the past year I've learned that I love being an active participant in it as well. I love carrying around a camera and finding things to shoot. I love looking for beauty and interest everywhere around me. Since I've picked up a camera I pay a lot more attention to the everyday world I come in contact with and want to explore much more of the world around me. That's a good thing, it's made me happy.

As my hard drive filled up with jpegs and my mind itched for new knowledge about cameras and photography my Kodak EasyShare piece of crap not so great camera died and I knew I couldn't be without one. So I turned, of course, to the internet. Blogs, photography review sites, etc. While I found a lot of good information none of it was exactly what I was looking for. What I couldn't find is a write up about what camera an individual bought, why they bought it, some examples of the camera in everyday use and a general thumbs up or thumbs down about it. Like I said, there was lots of info out there and I used it to make my decision but it would have made it a lot easier if I could have found what I was looking for. Because I'm of the internet generation I thought "when I do buy a camera I should totally blog about it. Someone else might find it helpful." But I didn't because I had just closed down my personal blog after 3 years. So with no outlet I purchased my camera (Canon Powershot A95) and went merrily on my way shooting.

After a couple months with my new camera I wanted to start displaying my shots beyond Flickr. I wanted a photoblog. Since I have lots of experience with Movable Type I knew that's the CMS that I wanted to use. I sketched out the design and generally how the photoblog would work and started hacking together bits of code I used and info I found elsewhere. There were a couple templates available from various sites that I could have used but none fit what I wanted so I created parts from scratch and cobbled together from lots of sources. At the time I thought "I should blog how I'm doing this because someone else might find it helpful." But again no outlet, so I didn't.

After my 29th birthday in July I started trying to look at my life and find ways to make it better. At the top of the list was work. While my day job isn't horrendously soul sucking it still well, doesn't inspire or fulfill me in anyway. I'm just a white collar worker bee for eight hours a day, doing work that doesn't matter to me personally on any level besides wanting to do a good job at any work I undertake.

My reprieve from soul-suckingness comes in the form of freelance work I do (if you need a tech editor I'm your girl) and my creative endeavors, writing and wait for it...photography. After my birthday I started to really think about photography as a career. I had visions of quitting work, going back to school and becoming a great art photographer. Then reality set in and I realized that I can't afford to quit work and go back to school, it's really freaking hard to be a successful photographer and oh yeah jumping into a new career that requires training and years of experience to really excel at when I'm nearly 30 puts me in a deep hole from the get go. Then I was depressed.

And then I realized that I didn't have to quit work to go back to school. I could take a class here and there, shooting like mad all the while and gain new knowledge and new experience every single day. I realized that while I love abstract art photography and breath taking travel and landscape shots I also like pictures of dogs and kids and people and shops. More importantly I really like taking pictures of my dog (and your dog, and my neighbor's dog) and my partner and my pseudo-god children, and my friends and relatives and the businesses I frequent. I realized that if someone paid me to take a portrait of their dog or bought one of my prints and I netted a profit of $5 I'd feel extremely lucky and rich. I realized that even if I never make a cent off photography I still want to shoot everyday and I still want to learn and experiment and try new things with a camera. If that's the case don't I owe it to myself to at least dip my toes in the water?

So I decided to pursue photography. Not just as a hobby I love but with an eye toward making it at least part of my working life in the future.

Maybe I'll never be able to make a career out of it. Honestly, I know that's probably the case. But maybe I'll be able to be a part time white collar worker bee and full time photographer and make it work financially. Maybe I'll be able to make enough to make it worth my while and more than enough to make me happy. Maybe I'll just fail. But looking at my 30th birthday rapidly coming toward me I've decided that it's definitely worth a shot. If the worst thing that happens is I get to study and learn and participate in something I love but can't make a living at it, well that's not so bad at all. As cheesy as it sounds I've decided that failing while chasing a dream is better than never going after it at all.

All that is a long winded way of explaining how we got here, how we got to Exposure. I want to write about photography as I progress and learn. I want to share what I know, what I learn and what I find. I want to write tutorials that I would have liked to have found and write camera and equipment reviews I wish I'd had before opening my wallet. I want to share what I learn about the business of photography and the success and failures that come with trying to, on at least some level, make a little bit of money producing an art that I love.

Thanks for reading all this and I hope you continue to do so.