The Beginnings

The above photo is one of my first digital photos and of cause it is a photo of my sister’s dog Mr. Magoo taken in October 2003. I figure showing one of my first digital photos on my first blog post would be a good way to start and tell about how I started in photographing shelter animals. I started late in photography and it started when I moved to Atlanta for a job and decided that I needed a hobby. I decided that hobby would be Scuba Diving. After learning to Scuba Dive, I picked up an Aqua Shot camera that allowed you take pictures underwater with a disposable camera. I found I really enjoyed taking pictures of the underwater animals. I have not Scuba Dive in a long time, but this lead me to getting my first Single lens Reflex (SLR) camera, which was a Canon Rebel. To learn to use it properly, I took classes at The Showcase School (It is now the Atlanta School of Photography). I took several classes over several years and practiced a lot. These classes also included dark room classes as I liked the idea of controlling everything to the output of a print you can hold. The problem with film is that it is difficult to print color film by yourself, but about the this time Canon came out with a relatively affordable Digital SLR (DSLR), which was the Canon Digital Rebel. Of cause, I had to get it. I had continue to learn on this from 2003 to 2007, but eventually upgraded to the 40D, which I used from 2007-2013. During this time, I found Adobe Lightroom, which helped me organize my photos and also Flickr, which allowed me to show my photos. I also learn to print the photos using an Epson Photo printer. During this time, some of my favorite subjects were my sister’s and mom’s pets developing a nice bunch of photos that I placed on Flickr. One day, I saw a post on Flickr from a photographer who was leaving Paws Atlanta to go to Colorado and that they were looking for photographers to help photograph the cats and dogs. About this time, I upgraded to a Canon 6D, for its low light capabilities. I was hesitate to apply, because I was not confident in my abilities. A couple of months later, I sent the email with a link to my Flickr album with the photos of my sister’s pets. They were happy to have me come and photograph the animals and have been doing it since 2013.