I’ve been out of photography for a long time… too long… and I’ve missed it. So let’s rewind a little bit. When I was living in NY I had lots of jobs, lots of side jobs, lots of hobbies. One of those side jobs was wedding photography.

Nikon D3s – 16mm Fish Eye ISO 500 1/60 f3.2

While I loved all the weddings and couples I had the privilege of photographing I always found the posed pictures awkward. I enjoyed grabbing shots in the moment. Before shooting weddings, I enjoyed nature photography. I’ll be posting some old shots in other entries. I really learned a tremendous amount in 2007 when I got a very photogenic Siberian Husky named Abby.

Canon EOS 20D Canon 28mm-135mm @105mm ISO 400 1/1250 f/6.3
Canon EOS 20D Canon 28mm-135mm @105mm ISO 400 1/1250 f/6.3

After realizing it was incredibly expensive to live in New York I ventured to Ohio bringing Abby with me. While settling down, my photography dwindled until it was rare that I touched a camera. At one point in New York, I was going out every weekend to different state parks or just in the backyard to photograph Abby. While there were other lulls, (I’ll get in to them in future posts) there was really no reason for this one.

Unfortunately, Abby passed away. While I now have 3 dogs, two of which are greyhounds, they lay down an awful lot.

Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @260mm ISO 2000 1/2500 f/6.3
Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @600mm ISO 2000 1/8000 f/6.3

Occasionally they lift their head and look grumpy that someone or something woke them up.

Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @600mm ISO 2000 1/8000 f/6.3
Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @600mm ISO 2000 1/8000 f/6.3

Sometimes they stand up.

Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @600mm ISO 800 1/40 f/6.3
Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @280mm ISO 6400 1/640 f/5.6

Even rarer than that, they walk around…

Nikon D3s Nikon 70-200 ver2 @200mm ISO 800 1/320 f/4.5
Nikon D3s Tamron 150mm-600mm @280mm ISO 6400 1/640 f/5.6

So despite all of this, I’m finding ways to get back into photography. I’ve always really enjoyed Nature photography so I’m starting there!

Now that I’ve put all the metadata in for each of those shots let me say WOW THOSE ARE SOME CRAZY SETTINGS! So let me explain just a bit. Typically what happens these days is I’ll start shooting something. Sometimes in the house sometimes outside (birds in flight so need a hight shutter speed and therefore higher ISO) and then I’ll just grab the camera and start shooting realizing the settings are crazy and just make it work. It’s rare that I think about grabbing the camera, adjusting settings first and then shooting. I used to be really good about that.