What Now?

2014, it is coming to an end. I just went through my blog I did January 1st of this year, and all I can do is smile. I have forgotten that my New Years resolution was to get more nature photographs...I think I can say this is the first resolution I kept (without knowing it) and successfully did it. Though, I did forget to buy that hunting blind.

As of this time, with only a few weeks left in 2014, I am still on schedule for where I wanted to be. At the start of this year, I didn't see myself in a gallery or purchasing a new camera. I think I may even be slightly ahead what I original thought I would be. I went back to school for a Bachelors degree in Business management, purchased a full frame camera (Sony A7 mirrorless), and half way through the year started to build an inventory! When I did my taxes this year, I noticed there was something with inventory and I laughed saying that wont happen for a few years. Surprise, it happened the same year. For the past few months, I have building inventory to sell at craft shows and to be able to fill a gallery when I am featured.

Starting this year out, I had no more than four prints in my hands. Yes, FOUR PRINTS! Guess how many I have now...go ahead....have the number? I have fifty-three...yes that is 53 prints on hand and ready to sell, with another 7ish at the Art Gallery on display (either on site or one of their local partner locations). Ranging from 23"x62" to as small as 4"x6", and I am pretty damn proud about that. Another thing, each of them are more than just a print. Majority of them are ready to hang, and at the very minimum ready to be framed (they are already matted and mounted). To get to this point, did require me to take a negative this year. Luckily, this was planned mid-year so I knew that just ordering a few prints here and there will make it easier than ordering all the prints towards the end of the year.

So what now? In 2015, I have hopes to get into the Kenosha Harbor Market the very least, it not more, to sell images out of my own booth. You know how weird that sounds to me? Selling photos out of my own booth......it seems to much like a dream I can't even picture myself doing it right now. I now have the inventory, and now it's time to figure out how to get a booth setup and display my images. I may even try to get into a judged contest with an image or two, we'll see about that. Also, in February, Epson releases their new 13" printer and I will be jumping on that. I will enter the "doing my own prints" area...well at least for prints that are 13" or less in width. Length...I can print up to 108"!!!!!!!! I can do my own panoramas in February. It is going to be a huge step for me to be able to take think of a photo I want to take, go out and take it, process the image, and then print it the way I want. Fully making the image my own from start to image.....excites me as much as selling my prints at a market!

horicon marsh art for sale

In case it hasn't come through in my words, I am beyond excited for what has happened and what is coming. I knew I would be just okay with doing my photography in a way to just pay for the equipment, but this is just beyond what I expected. As cheesy as this sounds, it is because of those who purchases my images am I able to do this.... Seriously, 100% of the money has been turned around and put right back into my photography. I haven't paid myself with any of that money, it all goes back into my photography to be able to bring you higher quality images and for me to be able to share what I see through my lens.

This will also be the first year that I have chosen an image in which a percentage of profits will be donated to a local VFW chapter. This seriously only came to me today, simply because of me seeing it on paper allowed me to realize how strong the image is. The image is of dog tags from a war memorial in Milwaukee, WI. (click the link to see it). Someone purchased that image and I realized that it was money I didn't feel comfortable receiving for it, as I didn't earn the right to use it that way. So I hope this turns out well in 2015 as well.  Just thinking about it, I may visit a few and see if they would like a print to hang up on their walls while I'm at it.

This late night rant went longer than I thought it was going to, and I apologies again for not posting any new images with it. I do have high hopes in 2015 for my photography...and can't wait to see how it turns out.

Photographs - Why Do I Always Have to Crop?!

In the last few weeks I have done a few senior portrait sessions. One thing that I had to explain, or will probably end up needing to explain why my photographs aren't the same as you taking in your photos to Wal-mart or Walgreens. This may end up confusing you more, but I hope this answers a few questions.

In school you always here "You're going to use this in every day life, you should learn how to do it!". I am finally finding out that depending on your field this may, or may not, be true. In photography, math is becoming a huge factor once I started getting into the mechanics of photography. While math is important on determining the print... Printing a photo, actually starts with the camera.

To explain why the photos I take are recommended to print in the 2:3 aspect (8"x12"), we need to actually look at my camera and more specifically the sensor of the camera. The camera actually takes the image in the 2:3 ratio, so when I am lining up the shot I am using all the space. If I know the image is going to be used for an 8x10, I actually have to picture the squares in my head when I take the pictures and then crop the image to that format.

Cropped 4:5 Ratio (8x10)

Not Cropped 2:3 ratio (8x12)

Cropped 4:3 Ratio (9x12)

As you can see from the two images, you lose a lot of the picture in the cropped 4:5 Ratio compared to what was being shot in the camera. I personally do not like to crop my images unless it is absolutely required, meaning my lens wasn't long enough and need to crop into the subject. I try to do all of my work in the camera so I don't have to spend so long cropping and editing later. My goal in the above shot was to show how alert the bird was, in the cropped version it just isn't seen. It looses my goal of the image. Yes, I will agree I like how the eye looks better in the cropped version but It doesn't tell the story that I wanted to tell.

This is the same to the other photographs that I sell on my site, portraits, and other images that I have printed. To me cropping an image changes the story that I was telling, in reality you are changing the art. 

So what really comes down to is that the cameras are really built to take images in the 2:3 ration, but the print that majority everyone wants is a 4:5 ratio (8"x10") or a 4.25:5.5 ratio (8.5"x11").

If you ever come across this, I would recommend printing it in the true ratio and get your print with a border. You can hide this border with a frame or mounting it. This way you get the full image and story, instead of just a piece of it. When you take them into Wal-Mart or Walgreens, they are actually cropping the image for you. I'm betting if you look at the negatives, or the actual image on your memory card, the print isn't the full image you took.

The drawback of getting 3:2 ratio prints? Hard to find frames for them. Luckily, the internet can help that out these days and can be remedied by browsing for frames for a few minutes.

Actually printing photos have more math in them beyond just the ratios that I did not cover, such as pixels per inch and/or dots per inch (there is a war between those PPI and DPI). What resolution the photo needs to be in order to get a 'good print'. And the information keeps going on an on for when you want to determine if that image can be printed at a 20"x30" size.

If you have any questions about printing, please feel free to send me a message over facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography
Twitter: @SteveSFoto
or the comments below and I will be sure to answer them in the next blog or over the FB page. 

Event Photography: Jumping Right Into a Wedding

So I am now, eleven months (almost to the day), of when I started to look into selling my photos and services to pay for my photography addiction. With a lot of research, lots of pricing comparison, and getting a feel to my style of photography, I have finally reached a comfortable zone to start doing events! I was hoping to get a few other events in before I did a wedding, but a friend decided to come to me to do record her wedding.

When she messaged me I was actually pretty excited, I mean someone actually reached out for me and asking me to do something as important as recording one of her most important days in her life; her wedding. I actually ended up saying no to her a few times and explained that I really only did landscape and nature photography. She said she understood that this would be something new for me but she really did like my photography and would really like me to shoot her wedding. After clarifying this, and understanding I would also do this as an official business transaction, I finally agreed to do it!

She actually had asked me back in February, and it gave me a lot of time to hone my indoor photography as well as research wedding photography. I was amazed on how much was out there for free! Youtube became a great learning pool of video after video, actually able to see how other photographers prepped and shot for a wedding. I then realized it wasn't much different than nature photography! When I shoot nature, I actually setup my composition for a landscape. I then wait for an animal to jump into it making a great story out of the picture. Otherwise, they were just candid photos of the birds flying or the animal running around. That isn't to different than a wedding if you look at it closely. The only difference: light, time, and space.

Light in the church, or at high hours of the day, or weather can all affect how you can shoot. How fast your shutter speed is and location become the biggest puzzle of this event. How fast can your shutter get in this low light while keeping your ISO low enough to get the best quality photo? How do you fit everyone into the photo? Where can you fit everyone into the photo? How much time do you have in the church after the wedding happens?

I only saw a few photographers recommend checking out the location before the wedding day if possible. This allows you to feel the area, take your time, and work with those in charger of the church prior to the wedding. This actually worked for me, as I went a week before the wedding and took a look around with the couple (which happened to already be there when I went). We were able to point out a few spots to take photos after the wedding, point out where people where going to be, and I was able to get some sample shots to determine what the light would be.

Exposure +.5 (ISO 800, 1/80, f / 2.8)
No other edits were done. Lens correction would fix the "everything falling away" feeling

I set up in the back of the church, put it into aperture priority and set my camera to be wide open at 2.8 (didn't worry about composition). From this point I adjusted my ISO (I do not use auto-ISO) until I got to a shutters peed of 1/80.  I then took a look at the histogram and saw it was a tad bit underexposed and put it up a half step and it was spot on. As you can see in this picture, the lights were not on so if it is cloudy the day of the wedding it should be close to this with the lights on and no light coming in from the windows. One challenge I have: available light only. Meaning, I cannot use flash inside the church. This was important me to find out before the wedding in case I needed to rent a different camera body than what I already own. I do not as I have a Nikon D7000 and I can take great photos up to 1600 and grain/noise just starts to appear here. If I go black and white photos I can bump the ISO up to 3200 with no problem. So I am very comfortable with my equipment at this point. 

Beyond the posed shots after the wedding the rest of the event are candid and detail shots which I love to do. I have already set up their online gallery on my Smugmug site, password protected it, and I printed off 50 business cards that have their URL to their gallery and password for them to hand out at their wedding/reception. One other thing I did to prep for this event, is I made a photo checklist to help me get all desired photos. They are not promises, but I will be looking at this checklist to make sure I can get as many as possible. So when we are doing posed shots, I can get a few shots off and if we are wondering what is next I can pop the list out and keep the flow rolling. I also had the bride and groom enter in some of their own items to the list as well. Such as key names and shots they would like that I wouldn't have normally done. Example: They would like all couples in one photo that have been married at this church. I would have never of thought of recommending that one!

One of the last things I did, is I looked at photography insurance. This is something I would recommend anyone who could not afford replacing their camera if it was damaged. Mine is about 500 a year, and covers just about everything with a 500 deductible. No matter what of my camera equipment is broke, it's cheaper for the deductible than to buy the equipment again.

Keep an eye on my blog as I will follow up with this Sunday if I have time, or early next week. The wedding is this Saturday (only two days!). Let me know if you have any questions. Comment here or on my FB page: https://www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography

Band Promo Photoshoot: Behind the Scenes

This last weekend, I photographed a local cover band, "In Harm's Way". The photo shoot's goal was to supply an image they can use to create a promotional poster for their upcoming event. The goal of this blog entry is to give you an inside feel on what I did, why I did it, and will try to explain how I did it.

A day before the shoot, I did some scouting of the location we were going to be at. I wanted to keep the photo shoot to an hour, if possible, and this allowed me to find some locations that I knew I wanted them to model at. To do this, I took my camera and took pictures as I walked around (even got a great landscape panorama from it). I then looked at the photos when I got home and was able to study the area to find spots I wanted them to model at.

The following morning I was contacted that they would like to move the time because the weather radar was predicting that there was only a 10% chance of rain between 1-3pm. So I moved up the time to accommodate this as with the fog the shots I have prior thought of were no longer possible as everything was hidden. As I pulled up to the location, I was actually excited to see how the fog was laying around in the trees. I had them do a quick shoot over the lake which ended up just being a neutral color background (Raw Shot and then Editing).

For this photo I shot at 1/125 sec at f / 2.8, ISO 100, at 70mm. As you can see from the before and after, the shot results are very different from the original. I used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.3 for this. For this shot I increased the highlights by 100 which changed the background to a nice white. I then increased the shadows to give their shirts back their color and also increased the vibrance by 71 to bring the color back in the reds. I then put some clarity in there and then brushed out the tree.

This was the first shot of the day, and if the fog was not there there would have been lines created by the waves with the lake behind them. I thought this would create great contrast but with the fog, I was able to supply them with a nice clean white background easy for them to put on a poster.


Walking back to the car the fog caught my eye looking down the hill with the road. The lines of the side of the street, the center line, and the split of the center line made great leading lines for a photo. This ended up being a personal favorite from the shoot.

I was able to get the guys a bit more loose and smiling at this point, everyone was already cold. They looked puzzled at first when I told them to "walk towards me" but I was able to get this photo and to me almost feels like a candid photo of them walking down the road. I centered the tallest in the middle so I could keep the shot tight on the sides (there were a lot of signs) then split them up so they would add depth to the photo. Photo settings on this are: 1/125 sec at f / 2.8, ISO 100, at 30mm. I was told they where going to dress up in their colors and when I was editing this photo it actually looked really great in just Black and White. I'm actually not a huge fan of selective color within photos, however, when I decided to play with this one and just add the red back into the photo it created something that I enjoyed. It just made the picture in my eyes. I then cropped it, again something I don't like to do, and remove the negative space to create something great for a poster. I also then went through and removed the signs from the photo.

The rain really started to come down and I noticed that their shirts were getting noticeable dots on their shirts and wanted to take them to the roofed area down by the pier. While driving down there, I passed an open amplitheater and saw a few shots within that. It set up for my second favorite photo of them.

Same settings as before, the light hasn't changed. I also was having flash issues, the external flash didn't always want to fire. Again, 1/125 sec at f / 2.8, ISO 100, at 36mm. This photo required a bit of clean up as the floor was messy due to all of the dead leaves and I removed the snow from their shoes. Also while looking for rain drops in the photo, I noticed that there was an electric outlet between the legs on the model on the far left and that was also removed. I liked the lines from the background and thought it made them pop out of what would probably have looked to be flat otherwise. So I increased the highlights just enough to see them but also making the image to bright. Increased the clarity and removed some of the shadows from under them and behind them. If my flash was working correctly the highlights and shadows would have been much easier to clean up. I also popped the vibrance a bit to bring out the reds.

I ended up with 8 great photos that I thought would work great for a poster, and when I was leaving the shoot, I thought I only had 2. The photo shoot lasted for an hour and I offered to take some shots of them practicing as I only thought I had 2 and wanted to offer them more choices. However, they felt comfortable with what I had and called it the night.

Some tips; one of the biggest reason why I shoot in RAW format is because the amount of information the picture has in it when comparing it to a JPEG. Information in the darks may not be able to be recovered (without large amount of noise, if at all) and light temperature is much easier to change. This makes Black and White photos actually better if you can manipulate the temperature of the photo.

Take a look at the band's Facebook page as they already have on up as their banner with their logo: In Harm's Way  and feel free to check out the photos in higher res as they requested to open up the gallery for everyone to see: http://santamour.smugmug.com/portraits and don't forget to check out all my available landscape prints that are available for purchase: http://santamour.smugmug.com .

If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask in the comments here, on my Facebook page, or email me: steve@stevensantamourphotography.com

Why did I start selling my photographs?

Selling my photography was actually something that came up in a conversation with one of my friends. Prior to that, I simply enjoyed going out and getting photographs and sharing them on either Facebook or Flickr. I enjoyed reading peoples' feedback on what they liked and didn't like, and I enjoyed seeing my pictures getting "likes" or "favorites". If you have have read my past blogs you would know that I only did Landscapes, Nature, and Close-Up (they aren't true macro shots) photographs and my friend asked me if I would do some portraits for him for holiday cards. I said sure, not even expecting to get anything out of it but just some practice in taking photos of people. He ended up giving me a few things that I was not expecting and that is when it hit me.

Why not sell my best photos and offer discount portrait photos to help pay for my hobby?

That is when I started looking into going more professional with my photography. I learned there are numerous ways to make money selling your photos, but majority of them required you to do to it full time and this is not what I currently want to do. My current goal is for the sales to be able to pay for my current equipment and future equipment, not for me to live off of. This may change in the future (I'm hoping that it does as photography would be a really neat career), but it is not something I want to rely on to survive. Once I was able to define my career goal with photos, I was able to lay out a pretty good plan. I added up everything I spent in equipment, registration fee's to be able to do legitimate sales of photography in Wisconsin, and other expenses that was only specific to my photography. That is how much I would like to make in profits in a year. I estimated how much I would like to sell my photos for and also if I decided to go into portrait shooting how much an hour I would charge, how much for a photo, and all the other license costs (example giving someone unrestricted license to a photo). When I got through all of this, I was very please to see how many photos I needed to sell, how many portrait shots I would need to do, and how many prints of those photos I would need to print. I then compared those numbers to companies around my location and found that I came up much less than what the current pros offer and I was glad with that as I do not count myself as a Pro yet. A professional photographer to me is someone who actually lives off of their photography, or a majority of their income is from their photography. I count myself as a semi-professional photography or an extreme hobbyist.

I really thought this was a great idea when I actually ordered one of my own photos on a 20x30 print, and actually saw that my photos would make great wall decor and that this could actually work. If it doesn't, it wont bother me in the slightest as it's not my goal to make a living off it but to help with the cost that goes with this hobby. I mean, 1300 dollars for a lens hurts the wallet a bit. Why not offer others the ability to use this lens in a way and have them pay for a bit of it? :D

Spring is coming around and I do have some traveling plans scheduled this year that will allow me to capture some great landscapes. So far this year, I have planned on going to North and South Carolina which will offer great mountain and ocean landscapes not to mention some fun street photography.

Don't forget to check out my Online Gallery  which will have my best shots. If you would like to see other photographs that didn't make the cut you can check out my Flickr page. If there is something on there you like, and is not found on my Online Gallery please email me and I'll post it up there for you to order!

One of my newest photos:

Eye of the Gerbera

What Type of Photography?

I was always intrigued by photos in magazines, for as long as I could remember. As a kid I loved being in front of the camera, video or photo. I enjoyed the funny faces, the memory, and seeing how other people saw things. I also enjoyed stealing people's cameras and taking random pictures, giving them a big surprise.

I then entered a stage in my life where I thought spies were the coolest things in the world, and one of the best things spies could do is take pictures. I remember going to our local 'junk store' and purchased a small spy camera that took small 35mm film. I remember taking hundreds of photos with it of random things; rocks, trees, friends, animals, and tons of other things. I ended up with many of those orange film canisters, and used those to hide things in (who looks in those things anyway). Going to the store to get them processed, waiting the hour+ while my mom shopped was one my most eager times. I was always in a rush to see how my pictures turned out. I actually still have a few of them today.

I think this is why I enjoy the photography today. Some of the main things I love to take pictures of are my pets, landscapes, lightning, animals, and just nature in general. I enjoy being able to capture what people see as cute, or amazing. Something that makes them smile, or sparks a memory from their past. This is also why I enjoy living in the time that I do, because the internet allows me to share my photos with strangers in a mass scale. Not to mention, no more film to buy.

Currently I only have the kit lens that came with my Nikon 3100 , which is an AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6g VR. I also purchased an AF-S Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G VR. These two lenses have been working great for my photos, however, I am finding I want more. One of the things about doing pictures of nature, is detail. With the lenses I get, I can actually pull off a pretty close picture and get decent detail. However, I normally have issues getting the desired bokeh (blurry background). Since my money is tight, and lenses being expensive (but so worth it), I tend to stick with what I have access to. Currently, I am limited to what American TV has to offer and luckily for me they carry a good amount of Nikkor lenses for my camera and at normal price I can get from anywhere else. Few weeks ago I put in an order for a 50mm lens, and waiting eagerly for it as they have been out-of-stock and haven't yet restocked it. One of the main things about this lens is the f/1.8g that is has, should be able to give me the bokeh I am looking for. I also purchased a Macro Lens set on Amazon that should be allow me to do some Macro photography with it (link for product). I'm hoping this well let me have more fun with nature photography. I'm thinking my next purchase is going to be a smaller one, and surprising by this Best Buy has a great number of filters for sale that have good to great reviews. The one I am specifically looking at is the Polaroid Optics 58mm HD multicoated neutral density fader filter so I can do long exposure pictures during brighter days so I can get that misty looking water in photos.

I was also looking into playing with fire, light graffiti, and splashes (thanks to Alex Koloskov for that). Most of these pictures will be better if I have the filter and 50mm lens.

Santa, Introduction

Introduction

Who is Santa? No, I'm not talking about that jolly guy from the North Pole. I'm talking about me, Steven Santamour. My nicknames over the years have changed, but for the past 10 years most people call me by my first name or by Santa. Mainly this is due to it being in my last name and growing up we mostly called each other by our last names because there were 4's of everyone. Four Steves and four Mikes and then a few others with the same name. It was much easier to call everyone by their last name, well besides mine. So they cut of half if it and luckly, that was Santa. Before that, due to my heritage, they called me Chief but quickly faded as that is when 'racial' names started to become big issues (even if the person didn't care).

So what makes me who I am today? I'll go all the way from the beginning and then go over some of the highlights that I remember that allowed me to make decisions that I have. I was born into a military family, the Air Force. My mom and dad met there, and the funny thing about that is my mother is from Watertown, Wisconsin and my dad is from (pretty near) Watertown, New York (I found this to be pretty neat in itself). I have one brother is is four years older than me, and one step-sister (through my dad) that is seven years older than I am. I didn't really have much of a relationship with my step-sister as she lived in New York (not the city) and I was too young when she visited then. I can't remember much prior to when we moved to Racine, and only remember a few things from that time. This was from about K-2 grades, and I do remember a few things during this time that shaped me into what I am today. 

I have no idea when this was, but it was during my time in Racine. I remember getting Simpsons tennis shoes and I remember my mom yelling at me. I don't remember what I did, but I remember it made me pretty mad. I turned to her and told her that I was going to run away. She told me, go ahead but if you leave those doors don't come back. Like any child, I said fine and put my Simpsons shoes on and walked out the door. I didn't even manage to get down the block where I played in a puddle and got my shoes dirty. Without thinking about it, I ran home crying and my mom didn't say a thing about me running away. This always stuck in the back of my mind no matter what I did, my mom would always be there. Even if she said she wouldn't. I also remember getting in trouble a lot, I don't remember what I did, but I remember it happened a lot. I use to get spankings all the time, and when I was really bad the belt came out. When I was really really bad, my dad used his hand (yes his hand hurt worse than his belt). Over the years, my tush go pretty tough and soon spankings no longer worked and my mom couldn't wait until my dad got home so she used a yard stick. Much to her dismay, it broke on my butt and I laughed at her as it didn't hurt anymore. This was the point where spankings stopped and groundings started. She started to take away things I enjoyed, mainly the computer and Super Nintendo. The reason I told this part is between the spankings and the groundings, I learned at a young age that everything I do has a consequence: good or bad. If it was bad, was I willing to take it? To this day, just about all my decisions are based of off those spankings and groundings. I would like to thank my parents for having that hard love that many people today believe an unnecessary punishment for kids. 

From there we moved to a small village name Reeseville, which is also in Wisconsin. There I started out as the bad boy from Racine but quickly toned it down as I started to know people. It wasn't until middle school that I started to get into computers, and High School when I got into webdesign and Macintosh computers. I played the alto sax in elementary, wrestled in the sixth grade and senior year, football from seventh to senior, chorus from sixth to senior, plays from sixth to senior, musicals from sophomore to senior, did a few years of forensics in there somewhere, and did a few years of basketball. Outside of school I also did bowling, which I still enjoy doing today. Mostly during this time I simply learned to fine that line right before getting into trouble, and push the limits on that line. I did cross it a few times, but as I learned young everything I did I knew there could be a bad consequence.

High School my main source of cash was working on a farm with a few friends. This included bailing hay, milking cows, fixes fences, and anything else that needed to be done. I also did a roofing a summer where I learned that it was not something I wanted to do. After graduation, I went into the retail world at a Sportings Good store (can't even remember the name). During this time, my friends and I were deep into fantasy games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and a text base game called "Realms of Despair". We also spent many nights sleeping over in tents, or crashing in the bedroom at Syrj's (one of the many Mikes in the group). These times taught me the meaning of true friendships. After graduation, I went into a more specialized retail that I would enjoy. I started working in the electronics department at Staples, which happened to have a few friends from school which made it fun to work at. In a year or so, Staples started to offer a program much like the Geek squad and by this time I was familiar of basic repairs and fixing issues on computers. As everything, it came to a stop by getting fired. Horse play was my last strike, and it was due to shooting a rubber band into another employee's eye. Yes, I did yell headshot. I took a few months of unemployment in which then I was kicked out of the apartment due to my roommate not paying the rent (even though we were paying him). I moved back into my parents house, and to be honest I don't remember what I did. I think it was about 2 months of unemployment until my friend Evans (one of the Steve's) got me a job at Herzing in the call center. I was only a few days of quiting when I was told that one of the guys in the IT department walked in and quit. I told them I would be able to do basic computer support if they needed it. Long story short, I'm still working in the IT department to this day. I am currently finishing up my Associates in Information Technology (finished early 2013).

Last winter I picked up a new hobby, and it was something I always enjoyed. I love to manipulate photos with Photoshop, but I was always intrigued with taking photos. I decided to jump into the photography and purchased a Nikon D3100 and a 55-100MM lens. It also came with a kit lens 18-55MM lens. I jumped right in, clicking away at everything. Photos can be located at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blu3dagger/

Some other general things about me:

I'm 27, and will be turning 28 in 9 days (August 21st). I own to cats; Mushu (named after the dragon in Mulan) and Wooks. I love dragons and have a dragon tattoo on my upper arm. I have this thing if my friends have something I need to have the same thing but better (especially in the computer world). I love to play video games (MMORPGs, First-Person Shooters), camp, fish, and sports. My football team is the Carolina Panthers (closet thing I have to home town team), and I'm an anti-packer fan. It's not because I don't like the organization, as they are a huge benefit to Wisconsin and I love their business is set-up. I just don't like them since everyone else in Wisconsin does. With that said, I tend to do opposite of what most other people do. I currently live in Glendale, WI and also single.

Mainly, this blog is going to cover my photography hobby and some of my rants. Hope you enjoy my blog!