Administrative office in Balboa Park, San Diego, May 2012
There's a recent meme going around that talks about hobbies you start when in your mid-life crisis. Hiking, photography, triathlons were all poked fun at. Another one joked about dude's hobbies they get into one month, deep dive into it, talk about how they're going to make money from it, and then a month later move on to the next thing. Photography was absolutely one of those activities, along with woodworking. I chuckled at these things, because I do relate to it. I have a long history with ADHD and Impulse Control issues that absolutely makes me a target of these memes. And that's ok. I'm not upset about it. I get it. I mean I bought my Sony Alpha 7III camera in January of this year (2025) and now I have multiple photography businesses and websites I'm starting. But for me, photography isn't a temporary hobby, isn't something that I will move on from quickly. Because I've actually been photographing on a regular basis since at least 2018.
What has changed is my decision to delve deeper into understanding light, and how to use Shutter Speed, Aperture & ISO to properly expose photos. Like many people, the advent of smartphones meant I could easily take pictures on one device, no need to have a dedicated camera. I mostly took photos to share on Facebook or Myspace. I captured some great photos on a trip to Southern California in 2012. There's still a framed print I have that we hang in our house to this day. It was in 2018 I bought my first actual "professional" camera, a Nikon D3200.
Released in 2012, I bought it used from a local camera shop. It was an entry level DSLR camera with a crop sensor. I used it for some marketing photos for a brewery I was working for at the time. I also used it on vacations and pictures of my daughters. I really only shot on Auto Mode and Portrait Mode. The few times I tried to use Manual Mode, the pictures were horrible so I stopped using Manual. I understand that this was a "me" issue, not a camera issue. It was actually a really lovely beginning camera. Fun fact, it's what my youngest daughter primarily shoots with today!
This doesn't change the fact that due to my lack of knowledge, I was frequently frustrated using it. I could carry this second device around, fiddle around with various settings, and in the meantime, miss opportunities for photos. Or I could simply open the camera app on whatever Samsung Galaxy phone I had at the time and snap away! Working at breweries, I had the opportunity to start taking product photos. Pictures of new beer releases, pictures of food from the kitchen, posting these images quickly to social media to entice customers to come in.
My phone worked great for that! No need to transfer off a memory card to a computer, edit, upload to Google Photos, where I could then download it onto my phone and then upload it to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The ease of that workflow meant that my main concern was composition.
