Photographs I took before I was a photographer

6 years ago I had an interest in photography and no training in it at all. This is back before my degree and as a nieve young man I didn't even think about being a professional photographer.

For those out there who want to know about the camera

It is a Kodak (yes kodak digital camera) easyshare C653, it has focal lengths equivalent form 36mm-108mm and is 6.1 MegaPixel. An ISO range form 80 to 1250. I also have no clue on teh EXIF data for any of these pictures.

Because of this I thought I would share a selection of images in this article (and link to all of them at the end) of snapshots I took while I was away on a 10 day hike round lake Zurich with some friends of mine.

*I warn that there is a lot of images of a small lego toy with many fountains as this was a challenge given to us.*

I will also try to hand off some memories and some advice (if I could give any advice to my younger self).

Onto Image 1

I am sure we have all been in a similar situation with low light and what light we have is not very nice, the best thing you can probably do is use something like a 30th or 60th of a second shutter speed (to soak some ambience in) and then use flash to freeze your subject.

Image 2

Well here is a classic kind of holiday snap, there are a few simple ways that this image might get a little more entertaining, first off if a lower angle we might be able to isolate (myself with the green rucksake, and friend 1 in the gray trousers and blue rucksack) us using the large window of the train station. Although check the rules about photographing in stations as some countries are rather funny about it.

Image 3

I caught this snap of him prepping some of his stuff, it would of been nicer if the framing was a little different, if I had placed him on the intersection between the lower third line and the right hand third line* it could have looked better, doing that would also have removed the green grass at the bottom of the frame which is a bit of a distraction.

* quick bit about the rule of thirds essentially it is this image below and placing things like the horizon or subjects on the lines or intersecting lines can look nice.

If you like and use the Rule of Thirds a lot (or have "mastered" it) have a watch of this

Image 4

I picked this image out as it actually looks good. As in you wouldn't know if it were taken on a DSLR or on this Kodak Camera.

The composition is good, it tells a story, and leads you on a journey.

The final image is one I took the other day with this camera, it was a backlit scene and I used the cameras own backlit setting.

Image 5

Yes, I am sure that some of you could point out that 6MP maybe is not enough now adays but for a lot of uses (especially web use) it is probably fine, the photo looks nice, and the flash is well balanced.

So thank you Kodak for being a big part of my life of photography, before I was a photographer.

You can see that the best camera is teh one you have on you, not the one which has the highest MegaPixel count if you are too scared to cary it places.

If you want to see all the pictures that were taken on the kodak camera than follow the link below, all of them are straight out of camera and you can see I was not always a great photographer:

If you want to read about my adventure from 6 years ago the link to the blog we wrote when out thereis below:

Hopefully this has given you some confidence that over the next year maybe just take pictures on whatever you have to hand, but try framing and timing the shots properly (unlike I did 6 years ago). Taking those extra two frames or making sure you take the extra second posing a group can really make a difference.

If you want some inspiration from my professional work you can look through my instagram accounts:

Or, as always, you can have a look through my website:

I am going to have a read through the adventure I once had and I hope the pictures bring you some enjoyment and this has been entertaining and educating in some way.

I am also going to try take more pictures with this little camera, and maybe in a few months to a year there will be a part 2 to this article, and hopefully I will manage to get some good photos from that camera.