{"id":54,"date":"2011-08-26T09:03:43","date_gmt":"2011-08-26T17:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/?page_id=54"},"modified":"2013-03-08T11:00:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T19:00:33","slug":"photography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/?page_id=54","title":{"rendered":"Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

The title catches your eye. “Photography” automatically makes you think “I’m about to see something awe-inspiring, beautiful, stunning, or just plain amazing.”<\/p>\n

Well, I hope so, but you really never know how these things will work.<\/p>\n

I got hooked on taking pictures years ago. When I married Joann, I took my little Kodak Easy Share on our honeymoon, and I took so many pictures, it took weeks to sort through them all and pick “the good ones”. No, really – Weeks.<\/p>\n

Then we got our first Puppy. Mokey T. Fraggle was born in December of ’06. We got her in February of ’07. Joann bought me a shiny new Panasonic Lumix FZ7, and I started taking pictures like I was Mokey’s own Paparazzo. I think my ‘photo crazy’ record was nearly 1400 pictures in 3 hours at a BBQ for the kennel club we were members in at the time.<\/p>\n

Were they good pictures? Not especially. But they were memorable, and captured a lot of great moments. That’s really all you can expect from a guy goin’ nuts with a camera.<\/p>\n

Mokey has had over 15000 pictures taken of her. She’s been a\u00a0“Daily Puppy<\/a>“. She’s had calendars made. She’s a little star.<\/p>\n

I took so many pictures of Mokey, when we got Ziggy two years later, I was worn out. Poor little Ziggy has had maybe 100 pictures taken, but they’re all very memorable, and she’s awfully cute. I’m sure she’s ok with it.<\/p>\n

And then Joann’s mother came for a visit. September of 2009, Mother-in-Law Pauline said “What are we going to do today?”, and I suggested the Zoo. I’m not proud to tell you that I walked those two ladies into the ground that day, trying to see everything in the Woodland Park Zoo all at once, and take a few hundred pictures in the process.<\/p>\n

It was the birth of my new hobby. Two visits later, Joann bought me a new Nikon D5000 – my first D-SLR. It had settings. It had lenses. It was… holy crap, it was complex.<\/p>\n

Was I an instant Robert Capa? Did my pictures cause the public to smile happily like those of Alfred Eisenstaedt? Was I ready to give Ansel Adams a run for his money?<\/p>\n

Not even a tiny bit.<\/p>\n

My first pictures were blurry, indistinct, vague, and could all easily have passed for pictures of Nessie, Bigfoot, or Alien fly-bys. But I was hooked. I bought a tripod. I bought a remote trigger. I bought a messenger bag… My wife got me another lens. I got one of my best friends to give me tips (I still do – Thanks, Brad!).<\/p>\n

In short, I got Serious.<\/p>\n

I love taking pictures. I love even more when one of my pictures magically becomes A Photograph. I’m a Flickr Pro member – why? Because I take a lot of pictures, and frankly I want to show them off! I spend hours trying to figure out if a picture is worthy of being posted. I-Stock would disagree, but they’re idiots. (That’s my Professional Opinion, by the way.) I’m also on SmugMug – it’s a lot more Professional than Flickr, and honestly easier to use.<\/p>\n

I’ve graduated from that wonderful d5000 to a shiny d800, and a bunch of new glass, and things have gotten better by the shutter-snap. The pictures are everywhere, and all I have to do is point the camera at them.<\/p>\n

I’ve calmed down a lot from those first days of “Burst Mode” picture snapping (Honestly, sometimes that’s the only way to get the dog to stand still!), and these days a trip to the zoo might include only one or two shots of each animal I see (Sometimes none at all!!!), and I might even leave the zoo with fewer than 50 pictures. Of those 50, perhaps 15 or 20 might make it to Flickr. Of those 15 or 20, I might choose one to put up in the Header of this site now and then (That’s right – keep refreshing the page, and you’ll see new pictures appear), or post on Google+ or Facebook.<\/p>\n

More recently, we got a new pup named Basil. Basil\u00a0(Pronounced Baahzihl) Rathbone. He’s a little bit of awesome and a half. He’s our first rescue, and so cute it’s almost physically painful. Love that little guy! We’ll see how many pictures of him my camera starts taking.<\/p>\n

So keep coming back, and feel free to visit my photo\u00a0pages to see what’s new. (Links up on the top right of this site!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The title catches your eye. “Photography” automatically makes you think “I’m about to see something awe-inspiring, beautiful, stunning, or just plain amazing.” Well, I hope so, but you really never know how these things will work. I got hooked on …<\/p>\n

Photography<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-54","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/paulkahl.com\/pkBlg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}