Photography is my passion

I suppose from my previous posts would probably provide hints that I am into photography. I began my passion for photography when I was traveling in Europe during my Uni days. I wanted to freeze the moment and the beautiful places I had seen. I thought, what I waste I did not know how to take pictures properly as this beautiful scenery. I could only hope that I could hold what I saw in my mind for as long as I could. Today, I could only remember bits and pieces of what I saw. At that time, even though I shot almost 9 rolls of film over my one month travel, it was still not enough. I wished I could take better pictures.

Since then, I’ve been snapping away on several cameras. My first camera was given to me by my uncle just before I left for UK. It was a Konica compact film camera. It took excellent pictures and it captured all of my moments in the UK. After I came home, the digital camera came into market and at that time, being new in the market, was still very expensive. So I saved up and bought a Sony Cybershot digital camera. I can’t even remember the model number, but it was only 2 Megapixels. At least I could take as many shots as I want without spending on processing. I was so happy! However, the Sony memory stick was very expensive. I used to ask my friend who lived in Japan to buy it there for me, which is much cheaper than getting it in KL.

During my wedding, I had Kid Chan to capture my big day. His work inspired me to take photography more seriously. He recommended Silver Gelatin for classes. Alex Moh runs Silver Gelatin and is a famous photographer and curator. I bought a Canon EOS 60 for that class. It’s the most basic and affordable SLR in the market. However, due to the number of shots I take, I found processing to be too expensive for me, not to mention storage space.

Later, I decided to go digital again. I bought the Kodak DX 6490. With this camera, I had lots of opportunities to practice the SLR functions. It was still too large to carry around though.

For my birthday in 2005, hubby bought me the Ixus i5. Its got to be the best camera I’ve ever own! Its small, first just in my jeans pocket and takes EXCELLENT pictures.

Finally last year, I decided to take photography to higher levels and decided to invest in a proper DSLR. I purchased the Canon 350D. There was no turning back. The images that I could get was breath taking. I explored with different lenses and slowly collected a variety that is specific to different subject matters.

So now, I am looking into monetizing my hobby. I wanted to see if my pictures had any commercial value. Would anybody buy my pictures? So I opened a booth at the Plaza Mont Kiara fleamarket and sold my best shots there. They were quite a hit!

My subject matters varies according to my moods. I do a lot of still shots and pictures of places. Then eventually I ventured into people and portraits. People are my most challenging subject matter as it requires courage and approaching people when taking their pictures. I was shy and not very confident. To overcome this, I volunteered to my company’s photographer. I was very nervous during my first few assignments. The expectation of people for me to take a good shot was nerve wrecking. Now I am able to shoot just about anybody.

With my confidence in stored, I decided to venture into wedding photography. I volunteer to tag along other pro-photographers on jobs. It gets easier and easier and I got more relaxed every time I shoot.

I hope to make some money someday with photography. (and resign from my stupid day job) :P