Post by a former photography assistant

Photography is passion

I think the start of any hobby or profession is PASSION! Here’s my Photographers Passionate Journey.

If you don’t have passion for something you will not persist. Like the tennis racket you buy your daughter when she really wants to play hockey. My daughter then only attended the first three training sessions and there after the racket gathered dust in her room.

No passion equals gathering dust. And that is not something you can teach.

First Level of a Photographers Passionate Journey

I started my photographic career as a hobby when I got my first film camera at the age of about 14 years old. One of those cameras was an old Kodak aim and shoot camera.

Completely oblivious to the endless limitations on a camera like this I kept on shooting roll after roll of film. I photographed the whole family, extended family, the back yard. Also photographed were the dogs, flowers, trees, mates at school, and everything in-between.

As a technologist it impressed me very much how light can be captured on a piece of photographic plastic film negative.

One time there was road construction going on at the end of the plot where we stayed. They were using a blasting contractor to blast away rocks to build the road. I informed my Dad I want to catch the flames of the blast when next they do the blasting. Needless to say, my dad laughed. 

The next day when the siren sounded for blasting to happen I was ready with my camera. This photo ended up in the high court in Pretoria as the blasting contractor did not use the required safety nets.

Next level

Then I moved up to a Pentax mz60 camera. Things got a lot more complicated for me.

Now I had a LCD saying all sorts of funny things like Av, P, M and I did not have a clue what they meant, and a ZOOM lens.

At this time I decided to read the manual and learnt things like shutter speed and aperture. I then started playing!!! 

Lucky for me back in the day when developing they had what they called odd bin. This basically meant that if the photo didn’t come out as you wanted you didn’t pay for it, I had a lot of “rolls” like that.

But the passion for photography kept me going and I was getting better and better.

Third level

After My wife and I got married in 1999 I decided to go DIGITAL just because it was the in thing. The camera I went for was an Olympus C-7000 zoom.

This opened a whole new world for me. No developing of film anymore. I could now shoot as much as I pleased, with ISO settings instead of ASA films. My camera also offered me video capabilities. Greater features and settings meant more experimenting and better photos for me. By now I became the unofficial official family photographer doing a weddings for friends and family.

Forth level

The time had arrived for me to invest in something a little bigger and better. As I still had the old Pentax camera and lens I upgraded to a new Pentax k 20D that accommodated the old lens.

NOW this made me look much better at 14.6 Mega pixels DSLR with interchangeable lens capability. Using the kit lens 18-55 F3.5-5.6 this gave my photography a real uplift. Soon I spotted a 75-300 F4.5-5.8 at photo first and naturally I bought it. Bird photography was the first thing that came to mind since I now had a telephoto lens.

Not bad at all I think. Now my passion took over and I invested in a second-hand Sigma 150-500 F5.6-6 APO lens. When you have such a lens on your camera people look at you in a different light and that is a good feeling. Obviously now I could reach a bit further and I extended ” no pun intended” my vision.

Landscape photography was next on the list. I then purchased a Sigma 17-70 F2.8-4 wide angle lens and the passion continued. The big aperture of this lens allowed me to create very nice Bokeh and wide-angle landscapes.

My Daughter and Myself found a new passion for this type of art photography.

And some Air show stuff of a Photographers Passionate Journey

A very big frustration started to settle into my life as I needed all sorts of extras my camera setup like flashes and flash triggers. The frustration was that there was nothing and I mean nothing available for this camera model.

By now I had invested about R20,000.00 in my current kit and had nowhere to go. I was down in the dumps and for a period of time stopped photography as a whole only doing the odd photos. The thought was that this was the end of the road. But the passion set in again. This led my to sell the Pentax kit to a neighbor for R15,000.00.

Fifth level

A refurbished Canon 70d with kit lens combo from CameraTek caught my eye and it was only R14,999.00 so you guessed it I bought it.

This is what I currently shoot with and it is a really good camera. I now had a lot to learn as this is a very different camera to the Pentax. Also, I was back to only having a kit lens no flash and no triggers.

Being on a very tight budget I saved up a bit and bought a second-hand Sigma 150-500 F5.6-6 lens. A lovely lens for wildlife photography. My colleague and friend invited me to join in a photographic company that he at the time recently started and our aim was to go into wedding photography. On joining we did a sporting event for paintball shooting and the 150-500 had nice reach for me to shoot the paint ball event without getting shot myself.

I really loved the lens and camera, but now I reached a T junction in my passion for photography. A decision had to be made to carry on with the long lens at no benefit to the business or get a good portrait lens.

As per my usual I kept an eye out on the internet for good deals and low and behold a good condition Canon 70-200 F4 non-IS made its appearance at Outdoor photo in Pretoria so I phoned them.

Turns out they were willing to swop me equally for my Sigma 150-500. Wow now I owned some L glass that’s the letter for the very best glass money can buy for Canon cameras. As I was starting to do Pro pictures now my camera and lens looked the part to.

Sixth level

My colleague paid for us to attend an “expanding you vision” photographic course thru DPC. With Danie Bester as the host where I met a lot of people and seen may styles of photography.

I started following these best of the best photographers on social media and the internet. This exposed me to a whole new level of photographers and photography. In the next couple of months my colleague and I practiced a lot. We also had the opportunity to shoot a wedding as second photographers.

There after followed some family shoots and engagement shoots and thru a lot of observation and practice my photography has jumped again. I can feel with every shoot we do my confidence is increasing and I am getting more and more comfortable with camera and gear in hand.

Seventh level of a Photographers Passionate Journey

We had the opportunity to shoot a friend’s wedding to expand our portfolio. And the results speak for itself.

In conclusion I think to strive to perfection having passion for what you do is key.

Many more levels to come in the future.