My Photography Story

And no, I didn't copy-n-paste this picture from Google images, I took it!

Those who know me know that I am very random and easily motivated. One day, I would randomly want to learn how to juggle, the other day I would want to learn Javascript. That's just me, and I love that about myself. I always want to learn something new, to become a jack-of-all-trades. 

The same thing happened with photography. One day, in the middle of July, a random idea popped out of my head: I wanted to start photography. That was it. Luckily, my mother had an old DSLR camera in her closet that she hadn't used for years. (For your information, the camera was a Pentax X90 and I still use it this day). That night, I ran to her closet, grabbed the camera, and found a way to charge the battery. When the battery was fully charged, I inserted it into the camera and started taking pictures. Mind you, I did not know what I was doing. First of all, the camera was not in manual mode. It was in automatic mode, making the pictures come out extremely dark. 

The same night I decided to watch a Photography 101 video on Youtube. (Youtube has everything!) I watched this complicated video about shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, and I didn't quite get it. That night, I stayed up till two in the morning, and I still didn't get it! 

The next morning, I decided to watch another video on Youtube, I understood it a little more than the previous night. After skipping through the video, I told my little sister to pose in front of me while I snapped a photo of her. I pressed the button, then glanced at the picture in annoyance. It was too dark! Arrgh! 
That afternoon, I went to my cousins' house, and of course, I brought my camera along with me. I decided to take some pictures of flowers (and weeds!) around their house. Sometimes, the picture would turn out well, other times, it would be too dark! I was clearly confused about it, and I felt like giving up on photography. After minutes of thought, I had an idea, "Perhaps I should turn on the flash. Then the picture won't be too dark." I used my camera's flash, and the pictures turned out like this: 

In my opinion, the quality of the picture was nice but lacked the fresh afternoon daylight. It seemed that the picture was taken in the evening. My mother told me the flowers looked fake. (I still don't know if that was a compliment or an insult!) 

It took me a few days to be patient and watch a full video of photography 101. Eventually, I learned the mistake I had made. And most importantly, I learned a valuable lesson: It takes patience to learn skills. The process may not be easy at all, but the outcome is always worth it. 

And in the immortal words of Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."

Comment down below and tell me how you got into photography. I'd love to read them!