photography

One of my goals this year is to really start working on my photography. I discovered that I love taking photographs and learning about photography just a few years ago, when I was in grad school and spent all my free time wandering through a textile mill that was shutting down, watching workers slowly cart all the looms and other machinery out the door. Writing about this was one thing. Seeing it was another, I quickly learned. And the first digital camera Pat bought me for Christmas one year — I cried I was so happy — fueled my love of wandering around and taking photographs.

What I’ve also realized, though, is that it helps to make time to practice. I’m one of those people who like to be perfect the first time around. I admit it, freely. But, practice! It struck me today that the idea is almost unheard of — for me, especially — and completely underrated. But there’s a lesson there, obviously. Musicians likely spend more time practicing than performing for others. But practicing writing or reporting, for example? Who encourages that?

The answer is that I’m going to encourage practicing, for myself and my photography at least. Last weekend, you’ll remember, I organized a photog meetup in West Asheville to get some practice in and to meet other photogs interesting in learning. Six of us crowded around a little table at the bakery down the street, passing around Keri Beth’s Gorillapod and talking about photography inspirations before heading out to shoot for about an hour or so. Along with the interesting group of photos everyone shot during the meetup, a cool list of online sites to check out started to emerge. It’s still small, but I think it will grow as the conversation continues and as I keep practicing. Here’s what we shared with one another, places to go for inspiration and information, to help our practice develop:

Reviews, technical info and equipment specs:

• Camera Labs
• Digital Photography Review (also known as DPReview)
• Steve’s Digicams

If you are in Asheville tomorrow morning and would like to go to a bakery and drink lots of coffee and maybe (if you can resist, you are a better person than me) eat some cinnamon rolls then walk around town looking like a tourist while snapping photographs with a group of other camera-wielding wanderers, then come on over! I’ve sent out a call to the Internets and planned my first photog meetup, for which there are Twitterers and Flickrers in attendance. Some famous!

So, here are the details:

Photog meetup from 9-11 a.m., Saturday, meeting first at West End Bakery in West Asheville. Share your goodies on Flickr, tag with AVLmeetup. Woot! Contact me with questions and Lemon Drops, please. See you tomorrow!

Sometime last year I bought myself a little plastic camera, a leaky light raft of a camera that from the very start made no promise of perfection. But it was perfect for me, I thought, because I can teach myself a lesson on letting go. I have a wicked addiction to perfectionism that I war with. Sometimes it’s bloody, bloody, this endless fight to resist trying to be perfect all the time. And of course I’m not, so part of the battle is admitting it. Here, Internet! I admit it!

So this film is the first of my perfectly imperfect experiment. It had been tumbling around in my car for a couple of weeks after I decided it was about time to see what happened. Not that it was any big thing. I was just preoccupied with other things. And these are what I found, these hidden gems in the roll. Gems to me, anyway. Rough and tumble, blurry and imperfect.