I have owned a camera of my very own since I was eight years old.  I’m pretty sure I was eight, maybe I was a year or two older, but anyway – I recall the Christmas that I received that Kodak Disc camera as a present from my Uncle Jesse, who was also my Godfather and didn’t have any kids of his own.  Stirrup pants were at their height of fashion and I was sporting green stirrup pants with a green sweatshirt top that had darker green stars on it.  And my hair was fairly short so I know that it was somewhere around third grade.

Anyway, I’d never spent a lot of time playing with the technical aspects of any of the cameras I’ve owned through the years save a sexy Samsung my Mom bought for me before heading off to college.  It was film and the shot I remember most was of a full moon, probably the one about this time of year – the Blue Moon, over Lake Superior.  I knew I had played with the exposure but didn’t really know, or remember, what I had done after the film had been developed and I saw this image and thought, “WOW!  How’d I do that?”

Now, I have a Canon 30D, purchased used, a variety of borrowed lenses from people, a pretty nice tripod and a wireless remote shutter trigger.  So, last night I decided to take the camera toys out to the screen porch to avoid my photobombing cats and attempt a decent self portrait.  I shot about two dozen images, pulled them up in my trial version of LightRoom and started to see if I liked anything.

The winner is posted below.

I shot it with my 30D, a Canon 17-55 F2.8 EF-S lens, no flash (was taken about 7/7:30 PM) and a 3-second timer on the remote shutter.  I cropped the original, I bumped up the exposure, converted to B&W, upped sharpness and clarity but also luminescence and ended up with something that looks like I clipped it out of a newspaper article. I liked it!

Comments & Critiques (C&C) are always welcome; I’m not a professional, but I’m always willing to learn more!