Wisdom...pluezzzeeeee...

Owl in camo
Originally uploaded by karrelbuck

I want to be a good photographer. Since I was a teenager I have had this dream, even though I never pursued it as family got in the way and I just shot to not miss the moment. But now I have time, time to learn, time to set up shots and time to Photoshop...but, I never set up a shot. Old habits die young. Also, I can think of nothing different to shoot. Where I grew up, in Pittsburg CA, I had many different venues at my finger tips, historical sites, the beach, mountains, rivers, foothills (different that mountains), rocky coastlines, sea lions, beautiful city (SF), ugly city (Oakland), capitol (Sac), tall trees, old trees, and on and on and on. (I don't want to go back, I am just using that to set the scene for what I have now.) Here in the Tampa Bay area, everything is clean and flat. I have local parks (the all look the same) and the beach. A small clean city. And I can drive in either direction and encounter the same. I don't want to be a bird photographer, but when you live in the largest estuary in the state (Tampa Bay) then birds are in abundance.

The thing is - what do I want to shoot? I haven't gotten excited about anything yet. I start a continuing ed Photography class at HCC in 2 weeks, I hope that I get a different perspective.

I don't have a lot of fancy equipment or money to shoot birds. Plus, everyone shoots birds. And landscapes. I want to get my OWN style. So, consider this my plea for wisdom. In the meantime, I am going to search Flickr for ideas.

Just a back up to my first paragraph - when I grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area I lived in East Oakland for a while and I hung out in Berkeley, this was in 1969. I was very social, and it was my dream to be a social worker and make a difference in the urban areas. You know that story, how many of us didn't want to do this in the 60s and early 70s. My dream was to make a Black and White book of faces from the Oakland area. I am sure this book exists by other authors in other cities as well as Oakland en nauseum. But that was my basis. Then when I was into rodeo's in the early 90s I wanted to do a photo essay of rodeo kids. Here is my problem with shooting kids, in this day and age I think parents would be reluctant to have someone taking pix of their little children, so I back off. Now, one of my favorite shoots is Toys on the Beach. But again, I am reluctant to shoot children, so USUALLY, I shoot the abandoned toys.

Peace - KB