My Photography Story

In this blog, I have decided to share with you how I grew to be the photographer I am today.  Over the past few years, I have always had people ask me how I got involved into photography, and ask for some pointers.  I have been studying photography for a good portion of my life, and it isn’t going to end any time soon.  It all began 14 years ago, in 1995.

      December 4^th, 1995 was my very first photography project meeting with my local 4-H club, Arroyo Verde 4-H Club, in Highland, CA.  With that first meeting, I learned how to how to take care of camera equipment, and how to begin looking around to shoot better photographs.  I received a camera from my parents, which was a 110 Instamatic Camera.  The camera didn’t have any real settings, but it was a good camera to begin composition of a photograph.  With a growing interest in the field of photography, created a demonstration presentation called “How to Take Care of a Camera?”, and I presented it at the 1996 San Bernardino County Field Day and my second grade class.  Once I understood the basic concepts of composition, my dad took me on my first photo shoot, which was to take photographs of the local area.  We traveled out to Green Spot Road, which back then no one knew about that road, and shot photos of the different equipments being used to build the Seven Oaks Dam in the San Bernardino National Forest.  With this photo shoot, my love for photography began to grow.  As a gift, my parents gave me a newer camera, a 35 mm point and shoot Pentax Camera.  With this camera, I began taking hundreds of photographs, and traveling with my family around the state to take photographs. My second true photo shoot took place at the Big Basin State Park.

     The first photo competition I entered in was the 1996 National Orange Show in San Bernardino.  I entered four photographs that were taken while my family went on a vacation trip to the Big Basin State Park in May.  I also entered in the 1996 San Bernardino County Fair, and my photographs got second and third places, which wasn’t that bad for first time entering in the fair.

     In the later end of 1996 and into 1997, my dad began teaching me off of my parents 35mm 137 MA Quartz Contax Camera.  I learned how to study light in a scene, learned how to use the spot light meter, learned how to use the f-stop settings, and how to change the ASA.  Along with learning these new photography concepts, I began doing a study into black and white photography, and I fell in love with shooting black and white photography.  We were lucky enough to know a developer in downtown San Bernardino who developed black and white film, and he also made us proofs from the negatives.  I returned with better photographs to the San Bernardino County Fair, and had a photograph that I took at Kimberly Crest Historical State Monument in Redlands that won Best of Show.  My Best of Show photograph continued on to the California State Fair in Sacramento to compete against all the other Best of Show photographs in the state.  That photograph won third place in the Best of Show Competition, and I was lucky enough to have traveled up to Sacramento to see my photo be displayed.  Little did I know, I will return a few years down the road.

     With the success of my Best of Show photograph, photography began to be a passion, and I even had dreams of growing up to be a National Geographic Photographer.  I began studying more advanced concepts, and entering to all the local fairs from the Los Angeles County Fair, San Bernardino County Fair, Southern California Fair, and to 4-H photography contests.  I also entered my photographs in an art competition that happened every year in my school.  I increased my knowledge with black and white photography, even learning how to develop my very own film.  I was forced to begin developing my own film, because no one was able to develop black and white anymore.  Alongside of studying photography, I also helped teach it in the 4-H program in my local club and county levels as I got older. My family and I traveled all over the state over the next many few years, and while on those trips, had a major focus on photography.  I learned mainly in the field while taking photos, and I later shared with everyone else what I learned while I was away. I was featured in local newspapers for my accomplishments in photography during this time period.

      In November of 2000, my family traveled to one of the California Missions, Mission San Antonio de Padua for my sister to do her fourth grade report on a mission of her choosing.  My dad and I went off to do some work with black and white photography on that overcast and dark day.  One of the photographs I took was a black and white shot that viewed down a mission hallway.  When I returned home, my dad and I developed that black and white film, and picked the best one, which was that hallway photograph, and entered it in all the fairs along with a select few other photographs.  At the 2001 San Bernardino County Fair, it won Best of Show, and that photograph returned to the Best of Show Competition at the 2001 CA State Fair in Sacramento.  This time, I won first place, which meant that my photograph was named the best of all the photographs in my age group out of all the photographs state wide.  Along with winning first place at the fair, people in the local area began to take interest in that photograph, and I was given a few offers for people to buy my photography.  One of those people, was my 7^th grade math teacher, who was very supportive of my photography. 

 

     Over the next few years, I began slowing down in photography, and began to focus on other different items in the 4-H program, mostly focusing on citizenship and leadership.  With me being more busy with 4-H in those aspects, we didn’t have much funding for traveling since I was beginning to go to 4-H conferences throughout the state.  The main part of my photography career in 4-H was put on hold until 2005.   

     In between 2001 and 2005, I mainly focused on helping my dad teach photography to my local club project members and on the side take photos myself and still enter in the fairs.  Which I would seem to get my share of first place, second place, and third place awards.   In January of 2003, my family moved from film to digital, with the purchase of an S602Zoom 6 Mega Pixel FinePix Digital Camera.  It took me sometime before I comfortably began to use the digital camera over film.  Once I switched over to digital, my photography activity began to rise again, but not till I learned a few things about digital.  I began taking photographs at many 4-H events, and I was hired to be a photographer at a local 4-H/FFA fair called the Chino Junior Livestock Fair.  At the end of 2003, I was old enough to enter a State 4-H Record Book, and it was only natural to enter in Photography, which I won in that category that year, which was the biggest accomplishment I could have with photography in the 4-H program.  In 2004, I was introduced to the computer software Adobe Photoshop Elements, and then in 2005 I was introduced to Adobe Photoshop 7, which was one of the best things digitally that could happen in my photography career.

     In January 2005, I was accepted to be on the California 4-H Computer Corps, which started a new era of my photography, as I had a plan to teach what I know about photography throughout the 4-H Program state wide.  I created a full workshop and presented at many different 4-H conferences on Digital Photography.  With digital photography beginning to be an interest in the general public, I thought it was time to teach people all they need to know about digital photography.  A year later, I moved my attentions to a new technology, GPS and GIS, and put my photography on the back burner.  I mainly took photos at conferences and 4-H events, and posted them online as well as create a afterglow photo slideshow at each conference.  At this time, I stopped entering in the local fairs, and my photography came to a standstill other then teaching what I know. 

 

     In 2008, I began getting more serious about my photography again, and it started with a camping trip to Yosemite National Park in June.  I then decided I would have to get my own camera equipment, so I don’t have to keep borrowing my parents camera.  In 2009, I purchased a Nikon D90 DSLR camera, and with that purchase, I began studying the advanced concepts of photography once again.  I also began a switch back to photography on the Computer Corps, and created an entire new presentation, which is split in half.  The first half is called “The Art of Photography” and the second half doesn’t have a name, but I teach how to edit photographs digitally.  Currently, I am traveling to every state wide conference and a few other 4-H conferences and events teaching photography.  On the side when I have time between school, work, and 4-H, I go out on photo shoots capturing what I see into a photograph.  Hopefully in the future, I will begin to enter my work once again in the local fairs.