Gleemonger's photostream  

I've been taking photos since about 2004, but really started to get serious in 2007. I'm self-taught through reading books, website articles and tips, and trial & error (isn't that really the best way to "learn" anyway?). My first camera (my “training” camera) was an Olympus C-750 UZ. In '07, I upgraded to my current Digital Rebel XT and am okay with that for now (though I think I'm ready for another upgrade for 2010).

My favorite subjects are spontaneous photos of people doing things, street photography, and old decaying stuff. But really, whatever catches my eye as an interesting subject is what I shoot. I've found over the last year or so that I love photographing dogs too.

I'm still a hobbyist and have a long way to go before I'd consider myself really good, but I'm always trying to learn and improve. I post all of my photos on here, even the "snapshots" so I can share with family & friends, because most of them don't have accounts... so if you're just passing through, I'd recommend just glancing at my Portfolio collection to get an idea of what styles I like to focus on and what I consider to be my better shots. I've only made "all sizes" available for download to friends, so if you want to see larger sizes, let's link up. I need to figure out a way to fix that maybe...

Oh, quick description of my current setting... I'm married and living in an RV in a rural area south of San Francisco but commute to work in SF... plan to be stationed here for a couple years until things are in place to set out and live life on the move in our RV, stopping in whatever town, state or country we see fit for as short or as long as we see fit or can pull off. My dream is to be a travel photographer & writer - documenting all the places we settle in our RV (probably a few months per area to really experience it). Well, the dream is to make a living at it... but I'm going to do it either way, so whatever.

Thanks for checking out my stuff!!

Current Equipment:
* Canon Digital Rebel XT body - I'm pretty done with this camera and ready to move up to the Canon 5D Mark II... when I can afford it.
* Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L - excellent, but HEAVY and HUGE
* Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 - amazing for the price (under $100), I totally LOVE this lens.
* Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 - also not very expensive but really good - solves the issue of the 50mm being too zoomed in, so I use this one as a walkaround lens a lot now.
* Canon 570ex II flash - finally just bought me one of these, but still need to learn how to use it. As much as I LOVE available light photography, I'm finding myself very limited in many situations, despite the lenses I have. The noise at 1600 ISO on my camera is becoming more and more unacceptable to me, so this will solve that for now until I can get a better camera body. Plus it's just good to have.
* Cokin Filters (some kind of suck though, so maybe need to rethink this - I'm probably just using them wrong though)
* Minor Photoshop adjustments when necessary - usually just Levels or some color correction (which I'm not very good at)... and occasional cropping if I just blew it on the composition (or just couldn't get close enough).
* So far that seems to be all I need, but I might check out the 70-300mm at some point... just not sure how often I'd use a long telephoto... My next camera body will either be the new Canon 7D or the 5D, when I have some $$ to burn.