Lens Artists #133– My Photography Journey

I’ve used cameras for years, but only casually until about 2012. When I was a kid we had 110 film cameras which we mostly used on holiday to take lots of snaps. You’d have to take the film to a processing shop and cross your fingers for some half decent photos! Here’s one my sister took of me on holiday on the Isle of Wight many moons ago, I think I must have been around 17 at the time.

Moving swiftly on! …

Back in 2009, you can see my urge to photograph the small things beginning:

This was using a Samsung ST550 point and shoot camera which I got for free in return for a review. It had a little screen on the front as well as the main one on the back so you could do selfies, and it would automatically take a photo when you smiled, which was quite the novelty back then! We would be trying to keep a straight face or hide our smiles until we were ready, but sometimes it would take a photo anyway!

Later on I had another free camera, another point and shoot – Olympus SZ-30MR (thank you Flickr for recording details of the camera used when you upload photos!). It had a macro setting which I really loved.

As you can see, that camera was pretty good with that macro setting, but I started to get frustrated when I wanted to choose what I was focusing on, rather than the camera choosing for me. For every one of those pretty good shots above, there were lots that were focused on something else!

In May 2012 I got my first DSLR, a Canon EOS 400D. I bought it second hand from a friend at work. At first I was all about auto as I didn’t understand all the settings, but I gradually learnt how to use them, and then usually went full manual. Here are a few of my earliest shots soon after getting the camera:

At the end of 2012 I bought myself a Christmas present of an upgrade to the Canon EOS 650D. Goodness knows how I managed to afford that, but anyway it’s still going strong 8 years later! Here are a few of my first photos with this camera:

There were some lenses also purchased during that time. I had a 60mm macro lens to begin with and upgraded to a 100mm macro lens which I still use today.

So 8 and a bit years later, here I am still with the 650D, still taking photos. My camera could probably do with a bit of a clean, but I’m not sure how to go about that. Otherwise it’s doing pretty well.

To bring you right up to date, here are some photos I took yesterday. It was really windy outside so I thought I’d photograph some of the houseplants. This one is a ‘String of Turtles’ (Peperomia prostrata):

This post was inspired by the Lens Artists #133– My Photography Journey. If you want to join in, just write your post and link it up to the web address above.