I thought it was about time I had a brief look back at where I've gotten to with my photography to date and the various trials and tribulations I've encountered already in the short space of time since I picked up my first proper DSLR. I hope that I can also offer some further insight from a raw beginners point of view as to how big the playing field is out there in the world of photography and also broaden the network of photographers that I've already been keeping in touch with. With a bit of hard work, persistance and luck maybe some of this information might reach a wider audience and turn out be useful to someone else further down the line who finds themselves in a similar position.
Obviously you don't want my life story because if I was that important I wouldn't be blogging in the first place and I'd already have my book deal done and dusted and be on my way to retirement. I also imagine you're probably not that interested in me personally (lets be honest) but are more likely out to glean as much information from the rest of the photography fraternity at large for as little cost as possible and with minimal effort but trust me the latter will never happen if you have paid attention to any of the notable experts in the field out there!
If you've got this far then I must have grabbed your attention so keep reading!
I started out with a Kodak compact camera and then upgraded to a Nikon D3000 about two years ago. You can check out some of my early work here - http://www.ablogandbeyond.blogspot.co.uk/
I appreciate that it's not great but hopefully I've been improving along the way and that's what it's all about. I've been doing a lot of reading and networking recently and discovered a great photographer called Matt Hart and as he pointed out in his recent blog post - http://lighttraveler.co.uk/blog/2012/4/starting-out nowadays you can achieve so much with your phone camera let alone a DSLR so if money is an object stick with a smart phone and get yourself some apps including instagram.....trust me it'll be thoroughly enjoyable and will give you a taste of all sorts of photography.
If you're someone who doesn't like the thoughts of networking then you might be better stopping in your tracks right now because it appears to be a key piece of the jigsaw when starting out as a photographer and isn't something I had really given much consideration to when I jumped onboard the photography bus. I'm not saying give up on being a photographer but I would hazard a guess that you're more than likely going to share your work with someone at some point in time so you're going to do that online unless you've already got a magazine deal agreed. Marketing seems to be another area of interest but I haven't reached that bridge yet so I'll avoid that for now. I'm not a big facebook fan to be honest and my friends list is limited to people I genuinely know or that I've had some sort of social interaction with on more than one occasion, sounds like a good night out for some people doesn't it?
What's that I hear you ask......how do you network then if you don't use Facebook much? Well personally I'd currently recommend Twitter along with Google+ which I am going to be focusing on again thanks to a chap called Colby Brown...look him up, he won't be hard to find. You've also got Pinterest and other options out there but these are the main ones for me. Coincidentally as I am drafting this post I see another contender now with a Beta sign up called BO.LT, it's never ending!
Well, hopefully that's enough to get you started for now but keep an eye out for future posts and images from my site.