I had a chance last night to be a photographer at a local fund raising event in town. Their usual photographer was unable to be there and they asked if I’d be willing to snap a few shots. I eagerly agreed, as I’ve grown fonder of photography and am anxious for more chances to snap photos.

I’ve been toying with the idea of pursuing photography more. I love my Canon Rebel XT, and love the great shots I can capture on the simple automatic settings. However, I am constantly curious about all those other settings and buttons. What do they do? I’ve learned bits and pieces over the years that I’ve owned the camera. Drew knows a lot about camera and settings, and has taught me a few things. However, they never seem to stick. I’ll take some fancy shot of a waterfall and change some setting so that I have individual water droplets instead of one flowing stream, and then the next time I pick up the camera to recreate it, I simply can’t remember what I did. Was it the aperture or the shutter speed?

I know if I really took the time to learn all the lingo, it would stick. If I use it constantly, those strange camera terms will begin to make perfect sense. Last night, I knew I would be taking pictures in a ballroom with low lighting. I wanted to attempt to take pictures without the use of my flash, as the flash tends to wash out the people. I had experimented with this before, and had managed to get some cool shots with more depth and warmth. Yet again, I couldn’t remember what I had done. Google to the rescue, and I remembered that I made the ISO higher. I experimented with my bedside lamp to see the difference.

So with my renewed knowledge, I set out trying the higher ISO last night. Some pictures turned out pretty good, others kinda fuzzy. The problem with a higher ISO is that sometimes the shutter speed is slower and any movement makes the pictures blurry. So, although I got several good shots, some were not so great and I ended up using flash on many anyway.

A couple weeks ago, our good friend mentioned that our wedding photographer would no longer be doing weddings. Drew jokingly said she could send all her wedding business to me. He was half joking, cause he knew I wanted to pursue it more. Later, we talked about it, and I said how I’d love to be a photographer, but I didn’t have the proper equipment or knowledge. He told me that in two good jobs I could pay off the equipment. As for the knowledge, he challenged me to take some classes at TCC. At first I just laughed. Then I thought about it more. Why not?

I don’t know if I’m about to embark on the professional photographer path, but I’ve decided I do want to take some classes. I’m still researching options, but I looked into the Lively Technical Photography program like our wedding photographer friend recommended. The entire course is over 1000 hours. Yikes.

As I walked around last night trying to capture some good memories, I realized more the challenge that may lie ahead. As I snapped pictures and looked at my tiny digital frame to see if it came out, I realized I couldn’t tell if it did. I didn’t have any other options of things to try, other than the flash. My knowledge is so limited and I have so much to learn. Plus, a photographer has to be pushy. I am not that. I walked timidly up to people to get their picture. Gotta work on that.

As I sat down to enjoy my dinner, I engaged in conversation with the woman next to me. She asked if I was the photographer for the evening, and I replied yes. She then asked if I was a professional photographer. I smiled and thought to myself, “Not yet.”