New Camera!

I love drawing cars – the therapy is exactly what I need after a long day. Lately though, I’ve wanted to learn about photography, too. So, I scored this new camera, a Canon EOS Rebel to practice on.

Please keep in mind, I’m starting from zero – when I first got the camera, I didn’t know what any of the buttons did, how it worked, etc. This is completely new for me, but I dove right in and now I know what (most of) the buttons do!

In photography, you can shoot in “automatic mode,” where the camera picks the settings for you based on what it “thinks” you should use. Sometimes it’s right and sometimes it’s not.

That’s lame, though – the real serious amateur photogs manually adjust the settings, and there are three main inputs: iso, aperture, and shutter speed. All three control light in different ways, and getting the right balance between them will result in different light and clarity values in the photos.

I’ve been using my own daily driver – this black 2001 Mustang Cobra – for a subject of practice, and these images show various results based on messing with the three light settings. The first image is pretty good – about as good as I could get for an overcast evening on my very first day of shooting. The second and third images are too bright and dark, respectively. I took these pictures the day the camera was delivered to my house, right after watching YouTube videos on how it works. Step 1: put the battery in, etc.

So I charged the battery and the very next day, I drove to the park and starting trying stuff. And now, for the real artsy, clever photography images, as taken by a giddy Aaron with a new toy, on day 2…

Most of these are a skosh too bright, but the brightness makes the black paint clearer and it reveals more detail, I think.

If you squint, you can kind of see me in the paint reflection. Don’ mind the awful paint blemishes. I do drive this car year-round. In Arctic, salty Michigan.

Here I used some artistic bushes in the foreground. Also, many dragonflies were buzzing about. It was good to get some exposure (pun audaciously intended) to the settings – the needed settings to make a decent picture dramatically change with sunlight, clouds, or indoors. This shoot gave me a good look at what works for a really bright sunny day.

So, is Aaron Thomas Art now a photography page? Eh, maybe a little – I always loved taking pictures of cars with my phone and now I have a sort-of-good beginner camera to mess with. We’re frequently going out to car shows, cruising, and I never tire of shouting to my very gracious wife, “HEY THAT’S A (fill in semi-rare car name here)!!!!” and then proceed to interject lots of interesting facts. But I certainly don’t plan to stop drawing and sharing each one with you as I complete them. I try to draw every day.

In fact, I have several drawing commissions I’m working on right now, and you can expect to see some art show coverage later this summer so be on the lookout for that. Today, however, we went to the season opener cars and coffee and I took my new camera, so next post: car photos.