2 years on DA/Post your progress

Dec 14, 20134 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Dec 14, 2013

4K Views

_{If you'd like to skip straight to the before/after/progress part, scroll down.}

I just noticed that it is my 2 year anniversary/birthday/what-have-you here on DA. Life has changed so much in these past two years, and it all started with deviantART. When I first joined deviantART, I don't know what I was hoping to accomplish. I had a friend on here, so I thought, hey, why not? I love photography, too. So, I joined and uploaded my first photo.

*The reason for this entry is because for the past fifteen minutes, I've been itching to delete a lot of my photos from my gallery. Because a lot of them are very, very bad

With the advice of a lot of different people, I started to pay closer to my compositions, and discovered HDR. Now, I don't do HDR in the traditional sense nowadays (with a software like Photomatix or NIK HDR Efex; I hand blend if needed.) However, discovering and attempting to do HDR really, really opened my mind up to a lot of possibilities. My thought's ran along the lines of "How did they get that picture to look so cool?? What I really wanted to know was, how did they accomplish such high dynamic range in one photograph? How do they make it (they being masters of their craft) look so clean and realistic? I couldn't seem to imitate that effect in my HDR software, no matter what I did. The results were grainy, riddled with halos and just overall sloppy. Then I discovered graduated ND filters, and from there everything took off. Photography, instead of a hobby that I really, really enjoyed, became an obsession. With every photograph I uploaded, or still upload, I can see where I need to do something differently next time to make it better. If I let myself, I'll end up deleting 90% of my gallery!

In midst of me obsessively researching/experimenting/posting results, I had people around me encouraging me to start a photography Facebook Page. I felt pretty silly about this - I don't consider myself a professional. But I did, and I'm glad I did, because through that, my now partner-in-crime found me on there, then approached me about collaborating with her. So off I went - you might know her from deviantART - islandtime.deviantart.com/ I grabbed this opportunity, and I'm glad I did; I have learned so much in the past few months it isn't even funny. And from there, my well loved hobby somehow turned into a career. I never planned for it to happen, but there you go. Sorry for such a long-winded entry! But this last paragraph is also why I have been so inactive lately. I just haven't had time to be on here! When we launch our website, I will post the link on here.

To all my watchers - thank you so much for all your support. I will always make an effort to respond to every comment. Winter should be a little slower - not that it has felt like that so far - but I should be able to get out and shoot more landscapes; that is, after all, my favorite thing to do!

Post your Progress

And now I'd like to get the the comparisons part of this entry! Below I will post the very first photo I uploaded on deviantART, and next to it, (or below it, depending on your screen size) my most recent one. Feel free to post your first deviation and your last one in the comments - let's look at what has changed!

_{I remember taking that first one and thinking how cool it'd look if I used a Tungsten white balance. And wow, major sensor dust! Haha.) Funny - both photos are from the same location.}

On that note, I think this is the last journal entry I will make this year. Merry Christmas, everyone! Have a Happy New Year!