I first got interested in photography in JR. High. I only had a Kodak point & shoot. I took it with me everywhere. I remember getting this great shot of two Big Horn sheep who stopped a posed long enough for me to get a picture. When I got the film developed, the picture was good, but it was not as good as the one in my head. When I got married, I found my wife had a Pentax 35mm film camera that she never shot any more. This was a great opportunity to expand my photography. A few years later, I began traveling around the world for work. I took the camera with me whenever I traveled. I was lugging around a laptop computer and a camera. I felt like a pack mule. But it was worth it. I was in Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia and Europe. Some really cool places and it was too bad that I was not a better photographer, but I got some cool pictures.
In 2007 or 8, I bought my first DSLR, it was a Canon Rebel. Only 8 Megapixels, and it came with a really crappy kit lens and shortly after added a zoom lens. I think it was about $299.00. At least in my mind, this was an upgrade from my Pentax film camera. At least it was cheaper when it came to shooting my kids sporting events. At the time, YouTube was still in its infancy and I did not have time to go take expensive photography classes. I soon grew tired of not getting the results I was looking for. I found I was leaving my camera at home more and more often. I was still interested in photography, but I just was frustrated with the results.
By 2013, YouTube had a lot more content. I decided I was going to buy a better camera and lens. I did a lot of home work. At the time, Canon and Nikon were the two big camera companies. I briefly looked at Olympus, but found no one made after market lenses and they were not sold at the any of big camera stores. After a long struggle with which camera to buy, it came down to the fact the I had a zoom lens for a Canon camera. It was a crappy lens, but it was still a lens I could use until I could buy a better one.
In April 2013, I bought a Canon 5D Mark 3. It came with a 24x105 F4 kit lens. It had 22 megapixels, shot 6 frames per second and ISO from 100 - 25600. The day it arrived, was better than any Christmas I had since a was 6 and I got an Erector set. Over the past 8 years, I have been very fortunate to shoot for 3 different TV shows and I live within 6 hours of Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras, which have some of the best landscape locations this side of the Mississippi or at least the 15 freeway.
I have spent a lot of time watching YouTube channels, reading books and going to events like Photoshop World and WPPI to become a better photographer. That is in addition to shooting thousands of pictures. The idea for creating this channel has been floating in my head for the last 3 years. A channel that can cover every type of photography. A one stop shop to find out how to do the type of photography you are interested in or may have some need to know how to do it. I am the first to admit I am not an expert in every area of photography and I plan to bring those people in when the time comes. I will cover how my camera is set up, how I took the picture and then I will cover the post processing of that picture. From time to time, I will have gear review, so you can get a better idea of what to buy. And every two weeks I will cover the news in Photography.
One of the things I have found in the past, is when a pod-cast or YouTube channels is just getting started the host is very open and accessible. They have free events and you can ask them questions or email them. Once they start making money with their channel, it becomes all about making money. Now you have to pay to get access to their special information, event become very costly and you just become a meal ticket to them. My goal is to have free events where we can all get together. I already have an idea for a free event later this year.