Photography

About Isaiah

Isaiah Burch

 |  Apr 23, 2019

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my new site about Photography and Design. Photography is a new hobby of mine that I picked up a few years back while obtaining a bachelor degree in Graphic Design. I’m actually a Microsoft Developer in my full time job during the day, while taking online courses in Graphic Design in the evenings. It’s not like I don’t enjoy what I do for a living, but I felt like exploring a new direction in my life.

In my spare time, I enjoy art and illustrations, and have been doing this since childhood. I’ve always been looking for a way to use this talent, either as a career or perhaps a side projects that could possibly bring in some additional income. And I was never convinced enough to follow this as a career path when I was younger, because I didn’t see any real monetary value. I figured most art student end up as art teachers in high school or college.

So this is partially why chose Graphic Design – it would give me a chance to at least apply some of my current technical skills like Web Design, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, while applying some of my art skills too.

I was during these courses, where I first picked up Photography. I never would have even considered Photography if it weren’t a requirement towards this degree.  At first, I was a bit skeptical and honestly thought this was a waste of my time and money. And I mention money, because I knew that I would need to go out and purchase a digital camera for a few hundred dollars. There was no other way around that.

I always thought of it as an art medium in itself – a way to capture a subject in a particular lighting and mood to tell a story.

What I discovered is that there’s more to photography than just aiming and shooting. You need to understand your subject, the environment, the lighting, the atmosphere, and also the equipment you’re using, from the lenses, the shutter speed, the ISO settings, and much more.

One of the reasons that I’ve felt compelled to create this site was not only to talk about my journey into Design and Photography, but also my experience so far in this field.

My Beginnings as a Photographer

I’ve been an artist and illustrator all of my life, which started off with stick figures and doodling as far back as kindergarten. But I’ve slowly progressed up to different mediums over the years and today, enjoy illustrating different subjects, through portraits, concept art, and some landscape.

One of the more intriguing areas that captivated me to take up photography was matte painting. Manipulating backgrounds and images through ‘photoshopping’ has always intrigued me – particularly the way it’s been uses in motion pictures and the gaming industry. This eventually led me into learning more about photography, so that I can have my own photographs to manipulate.

One of my lifelong dreams has always been to somehow make it into one of these industries as an artist or digital effects expert. Practicing on the Adobe Creative Cloud and entering photography has definitely been a buy product of this dream. With this, I’m learning more about photography skills, tripods, having the right lighting, setting, aperture, and other effects needed to take great photos.

I’ve discovered the need and importance of having the right camera lens filter as well – something that I hadn’t thought about early on, as this can depend upon the type of photography you’re planning, along with the amount of effects you’re willing to adjust in post-photography work in Adobe Photoshop, along with your budget.

Why I wish to help people

The one thing that I remember when first starting off in photography was how daunting and intimidating it can be, with so many people and experts in this massive industry.

But I’ve learned to take things in strides, and just keep practicing on a particular skill set daily until I’m better at it. So this meant, taking good photographs at times, like capturing a runner along a trail as a ‘blur’ without checking my shutter speed, or  even taking the perfect portrait of my next door neighbor’s dog, but too dark because I failed to check the aperture setting. I had to go through these stages with practice until I improved over time.

I was fortunate enough to receive constructive feedback from my online classes and local photographers who encouraged me to hone my skill sets, as I continued to improve in these areas. And this encourages me to want to assist other newbies in this field the best way that I can.

This website’s goal

My vision has been to create a site where I can not only discuss some of the concepts that I’ve learned so far, but to make available the best techniques and strategies when taking photographs, whether you’re using digital camera or your smartphone.

My vision has been to create a site where I can discuss, blog and share my ideas and discoveries that I’ve learned so far concerning photography, different areas and niches in photography and occasionally some graphic design.

If you ever need a hand or have any questions, feel free to leave them below and I will be more than happy to help you out.

I also wanted let everyone know that as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

All the best,

Isaiah

myphotographydesignblog.com