"AUTO" Addict

Hi, my name is Monica, and I am an "auto" addict.

So you may or may not recall that last year I bought my first digital SLR camera (which I blogged about in my other forgotten blog here and here).

To justify buying this, I made an unbreakable vow to myself (much like the one in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) that I would study and use all of the features of this camera.

Well, it is now nearly a year and a half later and I am still exclusively using the "auto" button.  Oops.  I bought a couple of books to help teach myself, but I am now convinced that you can't learn good photography from a book.  I think it's all in the hands-on experience.  And a good level of motivation can't hurt, either.

Whenever I take photos, I tend to be plagued by two demons, impatience and laziness, which compel me to reach for the "auto" button every time.  (Not sure why I feel the need to obey them but I do...)  But good photography requires just the opposite.  Dedication and patience.

Don't get me wrong though, folks.  You can still take some lovely photos on "auto", particularly of flowers and nature.  I think it's because you have natural light and a beautiful subject to begin with.  These were taken on a hike during our recent trip to Breckenridge, Colorado:

But when I look back at pictures of people or pictures taken indoors or pictures taken at night, I am rather disappointed at the outcome (see previous post featuring pictures of our apartment as an example).   The auto function can only do so much.  Eventually I want to be able to shoot photos like these: click here.

So I think in addition to reading my "how to" photography books, I'm going to make a point to start taking my camera with me everywhere I go and start really testing things out.  I will plan to share my successes and failures on here as I go along.  But for now, I'm afraid you're stuck with my limited photography skills.

oo,