What Photography is to Me.

Yesterday, I told my friend Dave that photography lets you block out the good or bad around something and let's you focus on one part, let's you paint a picture that's prettier than the surroundings and what you want to be seen. Does that make sense? I can't really remember how I worded it but I understand what I meant and that's what's most important, ya dig?

Looking back in my life, I know when I got really into football, really into girls, and really into cars and stuff but I can't pin point when I got into photography, all I know is that I'm neck deep innit. I took "Introduction to Photography" sophmore year of high school where we used film. What the hell right? Film, it was a dying art then (6ish years ago) and it's just about dead today. After that I went back farther into photography's past, "Darkroom Basics". Holy shit, if film was dead, doing the work your own was died with those cavemen they keep diggin out of ice. All joking aside, those classes were fun, it was cool learning and seeing something go from a tiny piece of film and then watching it almost magically appear on a piece of paper after about two minutes and you can say "Oh that, I made that.". I still have all my proof sheets (what you get after you devlop the film but before you make pictures) in a folder on my shelf.

While film was a great way to learn, you had only twenty four chances to get "the shot" and if you screwed one up, you wouldn't know about it until you devloped the film. The camera I'm looking at right in front of me (the "cheap" Nikon D3100 DSLR, my baby) can take 2,000 pictures (on a 4gb memory card), see at them in the screen, delete what didn't work, and try again. I went from taking maybe two shots of a subject from a film camera and praying they came out okay to taking ten pictures until you got the right one. Technology is beautiful thing.

In the few months I've had my Nikon, I've taken about 4,000 shots. That equals out to about 350 shots each time I've taken the camera on a "trip". Most of those pictures are in Washignton, DC which is where I work and also home to about one million of my favorite things to photograph. It's the home of old, beautiful row homes, giant monuments, shrines, tourists, and statues - all city scape and "live action"(maybe that's not the right catagory) shots, never a dull moment if you play it with some creativity. When it comes to the momuments it's giant white landmarks striking into a blue sky. The buildings are half old throwbacks colored like the monuments or new ones with glass faces. The people that pour in all have different looks and a look of wonder and amazement in their eyes and there's enough statues with differing styles to satisfy for a long time. I'd love to get to Boston, Annapolis, San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, and New York to take a ton of pictures but Washington will always be my favorite cuz home is home.

What else could this post be about? I guess I can tell you that I think Jim Vance (NBC4 here in DC) is my favorite news reporter of all time, Will Smith is my favorite actor (Jason Segel is in 2nd), my favorite actress if Natalie Portman, my favorite singer is Sara Bareilles, favorite band is probably The Young Dubliners. There's what, two verbs in that sentence? Yeah, maybe just two, I onlt looked back through up until my first parenthese. And how great is Jim Vance? I

You can tell I walked away from the typing, got hyper, and came back. I blame (I say blame but mostly I thank) Milford Swagger and K. Trags (shout out, if they read these...) for reminding me Fun Dip still exists.

What else can I blog about? My friends? My adventures with those friends in Apartment 1615? The dumb stuff I've done? Working in a hardware store for two years? My high school? My family? My idea to get Sara Bareilles to marry me? How much I love watching Community on NBC? The Chive (if you don't know, Google "The Chive")? My ever lasting love for the Redskins? Movies? My deadly peach/fuzzed fruit allergy? "Cross-The-Line Wednesday? My attention span? (By the way, this is more a list for me so I can go through and find stuff to write about when the tank is empty)

I'll leave you with a picture - Happy Friday, now get walking.

Haha, uranus.