sonykus' photostream  

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. That means you need to talk to me about obtaining a license BEFORE using any of my photos posted on this site.

If you make unauthorized commercial use of my copyrighted images, you hereby agree to a licensing fee of €5000 (EUR) per image, per use.



And now, brief history:

Got my Canon Powershot S3 IS back in October (2006) and I was quite happy playing around with it a little bit, every now and then.

oh, later edit:
Just got my Nikon D90 back in April (2009) and I'm quite happy playing around with it big time. ;)

Here's a list of my 30 most interesting shots, according to Flickr's Magic Donkey interestingness algorythm. I've hit Explore tens of times times this far. Some of those shots stayed up for a while and some of them are still there as we speak. Others have long dropped out, but I don't mind.

Flickr Explore is just a game after all, and it's not my first aim, although I still love the appreciation (aren't we all looking for some, in the end?) that comes with it. However, the most important thing is to participate, to be there in the game. And what's more precious than that, is your feedback, your nice and fancy comments, and the way everyone contributes to the whole picture of this flickr thingie. I guess that's second to none!






--- later edit (2007): ---

A brief (?) history of time:

How did I get here anyway? Well first of all, I've started a blog on Yahoo 360. Everyone does that nowadays, so why would I do otherwise? :D By now, that blog is more or less outdated, and don't hurry, it's written mostly in Romanian, with only a few bits of English just every now and then. It's not *that* important that I should link it up here, but I'm sure one could hunt it down if they want to. :)

Where were we? Yeah, the blog thingie. Well, that's how it all has begun. On your Y360 main page you can display a link to your Yahoo photo albums and you can show off your most recent 6 shots uploaded to flickr. And that's how I've started checking out other people's photography in the beginning. Back in those days I was "shooting" with a Nokia cameraphone only. Even though some of those photos came out really nice, they wouldn't be nice enough to whitstand the harsh flickr competition. :)

I knew bits about photography since my early adolescence, when I used to have a small Russian cam, a Smena 8M, produced by Lomo. I was mostly pointing and shooting, exlusively in B&W, (colour materials were rare, of bad quality, and far more expensive back then, in old commie Romania) but it really helped a lot in learning "to see things", frame things, and pulling a shot that's nice, interesting, and pleasing to the eye.

Then, there were years I forgot about photography, or better said, I was not taking any shots. Nothing completely forgotten, as I had friends who were really into things, professional artists, or people studying to become pros. Some of them worked in digital media combined with visual arts, some even had their own groups and small advertising companies. And being there is how I've learnt some postprocessing, Photoshop and Corel, digital enhancement, tons of plugins, and all that comes with them.

Then, by the end of 1999, I've had my first digital camera, a small 1.3Mpx soapbox, I think it was an Olympus Camedia D-340R, a real great thing back in those days. And there I was, taking pictures again. And hell yeah, once again that was loads of fun, rediscovering photography as it's been always a hobby dear to my heart. Unfortunately mostif not all of those shots have been lost. The cam remained with my Ex, along with the CDs that held the results of some four years of shooting on them. (I still nourish some hope that some day I'll get some copies at least...)

Then, after a few years more, by the beginning of 2006 I've got my first camera phone, a Nokia 6230i, with a tiny and fully automatic 1.3Mpx cam built in (and it had a great Golf game too! :D). And there came the fun again! I've started to take pictures of mostly anything and everything, snagging some shots that were virtually impossible to take on such a tiny little beast, and so on, yupp, there I was again, doing the thing.

And then I've decided to get some decent gear, as things were getting more and more serious. :) Didn't want to aim too high from the very beginning, as my resources were sort of limited. So, by October 2006 I've got myself a Canon Powershot S3 IS. I guess it's quite enough a cam for my first year of learning, before getting into DSLR school (note to self: I'll have to start saving!) :D

So now I have full manual modes (finally!), aperture and shutter priority, ISO up to 800 (although 800's too noisy), a good 12x optical zoom, stabilized USM lens, bracketing, a good image processor, a decent LCD, and whatnot, tons of great gimmicks for the technology freak in me. Great stuff for a beginner who really wants to learn things by doing. And basically, that's what I do now...

From here on, you can jump to the top of this page, to read (and see) further, starting with "Just got my..." :) Or you can take a look at my photostream (tiny but highly evolutive), to see how I was doing in the beginning, and what has that become to the day, in just a few months.

Thank you all, my flickr friends, you've always been a great company, a continuous and neverending resource for help, creativity, techinique and inspiration. You're great, people, in a great community.
Seriously, G R E A T, like this, in all capital letters.

And last but not least, thank you Bob, for the account! It was a great surprise from a good friend that you are. And hell, I won't forget that! ;)






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