First Blog

Well I have decided to start this blog as a journal of sorts with my journey through photography. I have always enjoyed photography ever since I was a little kid. However I stink at it compared to others who do it, and do it well. So I plan to use this blog as a sort of growth chart similar to the ole pen lines on the door frame that were used to chart our growth as kids growing up. I remember quite vividly getting my first 110 camera and snapping away like a busy little beaver. Saving up my allowance money and taking my pictures to Longs Drugs to get the pictures developed. I remember at one time I even had a little camera that fit on a key chain that shot 110 images. I never really shot 35MM because, well I was poor, and probably would have just embarrassed myself. LOL

About a decade ago I ended up getting my first 35MM camera. I purchased a Cannon. I loved it, took lots of pictures, but never as many as I would have liked to because the cost of developing film was kind of costly for a newly married man such as myself. then about four years ago my wife purchased a digital camera. To date I have opened the shutter on that baby over 6,000 times. I am probably no better of a photographer than when I first started but I still love taking pictures.

I wanted to take a photography class for some time but have just never managed to find the time. However come next fall I plan on enrolling in a photography class for digital and film, (depending on how my finances go) to finally start improving my skill.

A little about the name of the blog, Coztography. About six months ago in my intellectual properties class I took, we had to come up with dummy business. I came up with a company that only photographed cosplayers. I figured why not join my love of photography and anime. Hence the hybrid made up name of Cosplay and photography being married into a new word Coztography. As I began with this dummy business I started thinking hey why not start a business like this for real. A company of photographers that did photo shoots for cosplayers. Then I began to think why stop there, why not do fantasy photography as well with a sci fi theme or just photography in general? It could be a blast, and if it was something I did on the side there certainly would be no need to stress over if it was ever successful or not.

I am no stranger to running a business, I have owned and ran a business before and am well aware of the time constraints, stresses, and everything else that comes along with it. However there is something to be said about waking up in the morning and knowing you created, on your own, something that brings in money. I always said if I were to do another business it would certainly be something I did on the side, and it would involve a passion of mine.

I am really inspired by a friend of mine Benny. The dude takes awesome pictures and has a natural eye. He takes wonderful pictures with equipment that is not considered "professional." With just a disposable camera he can take better pictures than some people with a $10,000.00 camera rig! In fact he does wedding photography on the side and is great at it. He came to my wedding and took some the best pictures of my wedding. In fact most of the pictures he took are the some of the most prominent ones that get shown or friends or family have commented on. That got me thinking even more about this whole photography business. Its not the equipment, but the photographer. The equipment just makes your job easier or harder. Now there are times where yes you do need certain equipment to get the shot that you need. For instance I would imagine you couldn't very well do an IR picture with a non IR camera. So equipment is important, however if you have the eye, talent, or skill to take a great picture the quality of the equipment really doesn't come into play as much as people think. Ansel Adams never used a digital camera with fast autofocus and 50 focus points; Neither did Ansel Adams ever use Photoshop to spruce up his pictures. Yet somehow without any of these modernized method of photography Ansel Adams is still the bar upon which landscape photography is judged. Think about that for awhile next time you say if only I had better equipment my pictures would look better. The only way to improve is to learn and apply what you have learned. Granted I am no where near professional quality images, but I can clearly see a big improvement in my pictures by just going out and taking pictures and seeing what I like and what I didn’t like. I don’t know that much about aperture, shutter speeds and f stops, but after using my camera for awhile I started to learn about it by trial and error. While I may not understand the science behind it I learned that a faster shutter speed enabled me to see the water droplets coming off a rock when the water hits it, and a slower shutter speed made the water almost look like flowing smoke. So my best advice to anyone trying to improve their photography is to just get out there and snap away while taking notes of what works, what doesn’t, and what you did to get an image with a look you liked so you can try and duplicate it again and perhaps improve upon it.