Say Cheese

Throughout my life, I've wanted to be a number of different things, but never quite found my niche. Granted, I've done well with web development -- and it seems to be a good fit for the girl who used to cut out pictures from her grandmother's magazines to arrange into newsletters, whose main use for her computer used to be designing greeting cards, and who found a loophole in the required courses for her Political Science degree and took (and aced) logic instead of public speaking. I enjoy it and I am decent at it, but there's a hobby of mine that I've been thinking a lot about lately.

My dream is to be a professional photographer. Specifically, a sports or news photographer. But really, I'd take anything.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved taking photos. I remember getting my first camera when I was around 10, and one of my earliest memories is of looking out the window of the car at Narragansett Bay and wishing I could sit on the shore and take photographs of the ocean. I took an after-school photography class in middle school, but really got into it in college when I bought my own SLR and started taking pictures at Providence Bruins hockey games. Now, my favorite subject to photograph is my son. I've also discovered the joy of macro photography, and have been photographing a lot of the flowers outside the house.

I have boxes and boxes of old photographs -- a seriously ridiculous amount. Who knows how much I spent having them all processed. Plus, hard drives, CDs and DVDs full of digital photos. One of these days, I hope to organize them all.

I just bought my first D-SLR this summer with birthday and saved money. I have absolutely enjoyed trying it out, and now I want to take some lessons. I found out today that the course I hoped to take in the fall is full, but I am hoping to find something else. In the meantime, I am reading blogs like Shutter Sisters for tips and inspiration.

As with most things, I am afraid that I won't be good enough to make this a career, but it never hurts to practice and get better at something -- even if the photos are for my enjoyment only. I'm excited to learn more.

[Side note: I found out that my photographs are currently used on several Wikipedia pages. I discovered this when I noticed the photo on Brian Boucher's page was my own. That gives me street cred, right? ;)]