I got the shot

Publishing photos despite my worst critic's opinion

.

.

.

---

---

I've been an "auto" shooter for most of my life. In the last couple of years, I've taken my photography education way more seriously. I have been taking classes, doing research, and most importantly taking a lot of pictures. I started out my journey in film, and have since moved to digital. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and as such not many pictures I've taken over the years have made the final cut. In addition to learning the more technical aspects of Photography in these last couple of years, I've also learned to be a little more forgiving of my pictures. If I hadn't learned to stop listening to my own inner critic, I would never produce anything.

In the last month or so, I have been shooting in aperture priority mode. This lets me decide what parts of my photo I would like to be in focus, and what parts I would like out of focus. I found that this mode in my camera gives me a little bit of control, and frankly makes me feel more professional. Though automatic mode on my camera often captures amazing shots, I'm not always happy with the field of view my camera chooses. For me, it seemed a natural progression that from automatic mode I would go to aperture priority. I have been shooting exclusively in this mode only for about a month or so. I thought to myself once I master this mode, with further education, perhaps someday I would go to manual mode. The idea of manual mode has always kind of scared me. Early in my photography, I heard about manual mode. I tried it a couple of times in my first film camera, and spent a lot of money on lousy exposures. I kind of relegated manual mode in my mind to the extreme professionals, the ones who really knew what they were doing. I hoped someday to achieve this great and high honor, but always thought in the back of my mind I'd probably never get there.

Today is Saturday, January 9th, 2021. Today is also the first day I captured a shot in manual mode. Thursday, I was coming in to work in the dark, and saw what would be a really cool shot. I backed up my truck, got out the camera, and tried to snap the shot in auto. The camera chose a 2 second shutter speed, and as I was attempting a handheld shot, and it was freezing outside, the shot turned out looking like something out of an abstract gallery. I tried again the next morning, this time in aperture priority. This time, the camera chose a 3 second shutter speed. I knew what to look for in the display, and noticed this before I took the shot so I tried very hard to stand still. The photo still turned out lousy. It was very dark outside, and the subject had small lights on it. They bled all over as I couldn't stand still enough to get the shot. I decided to adjust the shutter speed along with choosing the aperture I wanted. When I adjusted the shutter speed to a more reasonable handheld speed, the camera bumped my ISO way up. Of course the picture was full of noise. I knew what I needed to do, I know what three factors play the most important part of an exposure. I knew how to use my camera to adjust all of those factors.

I made the decision when I came into work this morning to use manual mode, and I knew what I was doing! It was one of the most exciting moments in my life as a photographer. I selected the aperture of my choice, turned to my ISO to a level I knew would not fill the frame with noise, and selected a shutter speed that would work with handheld photography. I took the shot, and I got it! I could not have been more excited. Maybe I'll be a "real photographer" yet.

Now, could the photo have a little less noise? Could the focal point of the ship have changed? Yes, of course. There are 1,000 things I could have done differently, but in the end, it's still a cool shot, and one not every other photographer has gotten, so instead of listening to my inner critic, I produced a photo. And my first blog post. So, there you have it "My ship has come in" in more ways than one.

Thanks for reading,

Xain