dave.palmater's photostream

I grew up with a camera in the house at all times. No TV, but we had a camera because my dad owned a small town weekly newspaper in rural New York and he was editor, writer, printer and photographer. I took my first pictures with his "press" camera.

Over the years I was involved it two forms of photography. I took pictures or tropical fish. (Really!) Major macro stuff because I was dealing with very small fish, mostly kilifish, but others as well. Won some awards. The state of the art for fish photography at the time was 35mm color slides of all things.

I also did loads of B&W stuff. After all, that is the art side of photography, thought I. Mostly documentary stuff. Traditional musicians whose music I was recording. Some scenic stuff to provide context. That short of thing. Mostly in Atlantic Canada.

Six years ago I was heading to visit friends in Yorkshire, UK, and bought a digital "snap shot" camera. A whopping 2 pixels as I remember. My current mobile phone has more. I decided on something simple (no view finder for example) because I thought I wouldn't be tempted to "document" everything around me. When I look back photos I'd taken on music collecting expeditions some of them were so beautiful that I wish I'd "been" there. I figured with a little bitty camera I wouldn't see the whole trip through a view finder. And it worked. Sadly, the pictures from that first trip were lost in a hard drive crash. Thank goodness for Flickr that won't happen again.

Last year I decided to upgrade my digital camera so I could document a traditional music series I was running at a local folk club. I ended up buying a Olympus SP-510UZ because of it's claims about shooting in low light. (Shouldn't alway believe what you read.) Now that the series is ended I'm trying my hand at using the camera for other uses.

Here's what I've learned:
I am not a professional photographer. Never will be. I should get over it.
I should take the camera with me way more than I do.
When going out to shoot, cleaning the camera lens is not enough. I should clean my glasses. Sunglasses too. And probably even clean the bird crap off my car windows 'cause you never know.
Taking digital photos does not cost anything for film and processing the way my old 35mm SLR did, so I should take loads of pictures.
In fact, my camera can be set to automatically bracket shots. I should do that.
I should read the manual. I mean really read it! Really!
96 times out of 100 random people do not make interesting subjects but the 4 times that they do make all the other shots worth it.
Friends and loved ones are great subjects. But only to me and other friends and loved ones.
Dogs are way more fun to interact with than to photograph. Put the camera down. Here doggy, doggy.
It's OK to take the standard "tourists" shots.
It's fun being a tourist in your own area. But if people ask, tell them you're from out of state (or out of the country) because they are so disappointed when you tell them you are from the next town over.
Food would seem to be a great subject but is usually not. Ingredients sometimes are. Vegetables in particular, raw meat less so.