Photography has been an important thing in my life since I was around ten, after my mother gave me an old Kodak 110 film cartridge point and shoot.
Whenever I could convince my parents to buy or allow me to use my own money to get a film roll I would rush to jam the cartridge into the camera and become the next Ansel Adams. Now fast forward by about 500 very bad pictures. My dad leans over and says, “You know your camera doesn’t have a zoom lens right?” I was attempting to take a picture of Mickey Mouse from across a fifty foot space; yeah we can say it wasn’t a good shot.
Well over time my dad allowed me to use his Minolta SLR from time to time and my skills improved some. Once again I began experimenting by changing the settings just to see what would be the effect. It all kind of stopped when two rolls of film came back either completely dark or that sickly yellowish overexposed white. At that point I put the camera away and pursued other interests.
Several years later and after getting married and just before my first son was born, I bought a Polaroid instant camera. Once again the shutterbug in me got fired up. We were limited on extra money at the time, with the new baby and starting a new career, but I did what I could with what was available. I noticed my shot really did improve and I really enjoyed the instant film format. Then the first digital cameras came out.
I bought a very cheap 1.6 mp point and shoot. The picture quality was terrible, there was no flash, and it stored about ten shots in the memory at a time but I fell in love with the camera.
I could actually just take as many pictures as I wanted and later just trash the ones that were junk at no cost to me. I was really excited about this and couldn’t wait until the manufactures figured out how to make the cameras make shots as good as film. Then one day I bought my Canon Rebel XT.
This is when I seriously got studying on photography. I read every book I could get my hands on, looked at endless websites and blogs, and tried to compare what made their shots different than mine. I then submitted some of my shots to a stock photography agency.
They were accepted but was told, “We like your pictures but they look a little like a snap shot. You should get closer and fill the frame.” That was the turning point for me. I did get closer and a year later I opened Mark Birks Photography.
I specialize in fine art photography and portraiture. I have won competitions both locally and nationally and have been featured in an online magazine called Photography BB. My approach is to get the best shot possible and then do very little digital editing. Above all I keep the saying from Robert Capa in my head, “If your images are boring, you’re not close enough.”
Links
Blog address: http://birks.wordpress.com
Email : birksphotography@gmail.com
Nice story! Thanks for sharing.
Sounds like a fun journey. Thanks for sharing!
*lol* I too started with a Kodak 110!! I look back at some of my images (still trying to find a place & the money to get the neg’s scanned) and have actually found a few gems in there.
Great work here and on your blog!