Love.

As V Day approaches, I went digging through my archives for this picture that I remembered taking, so I could throw it on my desktop background. I took it about 5 weeks after getting my first DSLR. I loved it. When I pulled it out I was all, "Whew dog, that is one bad picture." It was just a jpeg, from long before I shot in RAW or owned Photoshop, and if I'd known what I was doing at all, it would have been a completely different exposure. But it wasn't. It was so sweet, all full of nostalgia and yellowish-colored goodness from back in the day when I was just getting to know what's up and what's down, and I remember I was experimenting with depth-of-field. Good for me. That's how you figure things out.

But this just couldn't do for my desktop wallpaper.


So I threw it into CS3 and within 30 seconds, it looked like this.


Ahhhh, that's better. Still not perfect, but Oh, so much better. I have looked everywhere for these little conversation hearts this year, and it looks like they don't sell them in the bags any more- only those little boxes. What is up with that? I digress.

I just wanted to say, I remember vividly what it was like to not know what I was doing. And I still work nearly every day to make myself better. You don't ever just arrive at some moment of ultimate greatness. Every photographer is on a journey. At every level.

And I'm a teacher. It's what I do all day long. And I love learning- from people, experiences- I love the whole process.

It's one thing to learn something, but for me, it's completing the joy-circle to share it with someone else, and it's covering the joy-circle with gourmet chocolate and sprinkles to help someone make a new light bulb-moment discovery. And nearly 100% of the time, I learn something too, when I'm answering questions, just as much as when I'm finding answers for myself.

All that to say, I love answering questions. I get photography-related questions frequently. How do you..., When did you..., How do I get... and the like. And usually there's some sort of apology for bothering me, or a general, "I feel like a dork for not knowing how to do this, but..." and there's also a big dose of feeling ashamed for reading my blog when they don't actually know me. Well, if you read this blog, you do know me- you might know me better than some of the people I see on a weekly basis. See? Don't feel awkward.

So many people have handed me torches along the way- I really just want to pass them on. They're burning holes in my pockets.

If you're local, I'd love to meet up for coffee and focal points advice. If you're far away, you can absolutely email me. I love doing things like that.

I'm not very intimidating, because I'm not cool at all. Really. Not at all. Basically a total dork.