yurilong's photostream  

I fancy myself a creative type, having spent many years writing and performing music, but I'm pretty new to photography. So far I've been focusing on getting down the technical aspects in hopes that once the camera becomes an extension of my self, I will be able to create through this medium. My Flickr page is primarily a place for me to organize and track my progress and share it with friends.

I've had various point and shoot cameras over the years which offered varying levels of control/quality, but they never really gave me much satisfaction or impetus to really get into photography. Then I got my first "real" camera in June 2010, and I've loved learning on my new dSLR, Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS/1000D. I started out with the 18-55mm kit lens and sometimes use another cheap 55-250mm zoom, but I prefer shooting with a 50mm prime lens. I like the limitations and feel it's helping me learn a lot. I also have a 50mm macro lens that I mainly use for photographing books at work. I shoot RAW and mainly process in Adobe Lightroom. I mess around with Photoshop and the Photomatix Pro plugin for HDR occasionally, but I try to keep processing to a minimum.

Now I'm looking to expand my horizons. I found a 35mm film camera, Canon EOS 630 so I can use my 50mm lenses. I've been having fun with it, but I also picked up a Mamiya 645 Pro medium format camera which I've just started using. Once I finish grad school, I'd like to look in to doing my own developing as well.

I'll continue posting my progress here, and hopefully we'll see some improvement over time. I hope I can find a way to combine my music with photography too.

As a note, I personally don't believe in copyright, so feel free to use any of my photos for whatever, but I'd appreciate a mention if you do just because that seems like a nice thing to do. The only restrictions I've put on are some photos of family and friends who may not appreciate having their picture used.