When I decided to write my blog on photography, my first task was to find a camera. I didn’t do much research on what camera might be best for me, because my student budget reminded me to find the least expensive one that would work for this project. Thankfully, I found someone trying to sell their old camera for a really great price because it was dropped once in its lifetime, causing a few minor flaws. The camera is a Nikon D3100 with a Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. I have to admit, I do not know what most of that means yet, but that is what square one is all about. Its flaws include a flash that does not work, two minor cracks on the screen of the camera (not the lens, so photos are unaffected by this), and a slightly sticky auto-focus which causes a bit of noise sometimes. Generally, all very minor issues and nothing that will largely impact my learning journey as a beginner photographer.
After I purchased the camera, I was seriously excited to start playing around with it. I started by using auto mode, and I took pictures of everything I could find, as if I were a child again with my little pink digital camera. You can imagine my disappointment when I realized that it was actually quite challenging to take a decent picture, and even taking a picture of the fruit bowl on my counter somehow looked wrong. I reminded myself that this is the point of getting a real camera, and that I wouldn’t be learning if I could take great pictures right away. This will be a valuable project for me to remind myself what it feels like to learn something completely new, and the growth mindset I will need to succeed.
Over the next couple of days, I watched some YouTube videos about how to use the various basic settings on the camera, and how to understand manual mode. Learning photography feels almost like learning an entirely new language with different shutter speeds, aperture settings, focus points, and many more things that I am only beginning to get the hang of. Despite this challenge, once I learned how to take photos in manual mode, I started getting very excited. I walked down to the beach and experimented with shutter speed, aperture, and different ways to focus. I took many pictures that looked like blurs of grey and blue, many that were simply white from too much light exposure, and I took a couple that were sort of what I was hoping for, which felt really good.
Oddly enough, I was practicing different ways to focus by taking pictures of my shoes, and getting those shoes in focus and with the right lighting was more challenging than I would have imagined, but I never thought I would be so proud of a picture of shoes as I was when I finally figured out how to make it look the way I intended.
1st Attempt 
2nd Attempt 
Got It!
I am incredibly excited to continue learning about photography. Even writing this blog is challenging for me right now because I just want to run outside with my camera and take more photos. I am looking forward to what I will be learning this week!
While I was writing this post, I had to pause to go take some shots of a deer who came to visit our backyard. He visits often, and I call him Duke. I will end this post with a photo I took of him this afternoon.
Kaitlyn Schafer 