Birthday Photography and Life

Photo by Karin

Three years ago, my thoughtful fiancée gave me an awesome Christmas present: a Fujifilm X20 camera.  Basically, it has been glued to my side since he gave it to me and it is what I have been using to take all of our Germany Adventure photos.

It's awesome because it's light and little, but the optics are really good and it has all the manual options that a huge, heavy SLR (single lens reflex) camera would have.  Since I got the camera, I've been learning by trial-and-error how to use the manual settings as well as some of the other fun features (like when I take double exposures).  Still, my photography knowledge was a random hodge-podge of information acquired by reading the camera manual and soaking up as much information as possible  from my wise photographer friends.

Once again, my thoughtful fiancée struck with yet another gift that keeps on giving... for my 30th birthday he enrolled me in a Photography Workshop where I could formally learn the ins and outs of photography.  

We met on a Sunday morning at a funky cafe in East Berlin.  You can see the cafe ceiling in the picture above.  

Here Paul spent 3 hours breaking down the elements of exposure and how to control them using our respective cameras.  There were 6 people in our aspiring crew and we represented at least 5 different countries.  I was the only American in the group.  I was also the one asking most of the questions.  I'm not sure if these two factors have anything to do with one another, but hopefully I didn't come off as being too obnoxious with my inquisitive nature.  I just wanted to learn!

Paul was a wealth of knowledge touching on the mechanics of photography as well as artistic composition, and he even discussed the ethics of being a photographer.  Considering my current lifestyle, it was good to hear about the ethics of "street photography" and how to approach a stranger if you are hoping to take their portrait.  I'm not sure if I have the nerve to approach a stranger on the streets of Berlin, but at least now I know how to do it politely.  

After our instructional period, Paul led us out to the streets where we were able to practice everything.  We paired up and Karin from Austria, pictured above, became my partner.  We practiced taking each other's portraits using a shallow depth of field.  This is what happens when you make your subject very clear and sharp while the background is blurred out.  It's one of my favorite photography techniques.  I think it makes photos so interesting and portraits so beautiful!

Photo by Karin

Karin took this one of me.  I think she made me laugh about something but I don't remember what exactly. 

Here is another fellow in my class.  

Peace Karin!

We also experimented with shutter speed, which has to do with how long the digital sensor (or the film in the old days) is exposed to the light.  If you leave the shutter open for a long time, it would cause a photo of a moving figured to look very blurry.  So if you have someone jumping, like Paul here, you want the shutter to be open for a very short period of time.  

Paul's final advice to us, so that we might all become better photographers, was simply to get up and go outside.  "Go take pictures," he said.  You are never going to get that great photo if you weren't there to take it.  Carpe Photo 'em!  And really, isn't that how we should live our lives every day?  I'm glad I have my little Fujifilm to push me to experience the world around me and to give me an excuse to leave the couch and soak up my surroundings. But I hope I never forget that living my life is a choice I get to make every morning when I wake up, and I don't always need a camera to do it.  I will turn 30 years old this evening at exactly 6:34 and 19 seconds.  That isn't a ton of years, but it is long enough to look back and feel proud of all the living I have done so far and feel excited about all the living I have yet to do!  

I stood and watched this street performer sing "Stand By Me" under a bridge at a bustling intersection in East Berlin.  Thanks to my camera and all the thoughtful gifts that Fritz has given me, I will always have this image to help me remember the feelings that filled me on this day as well as the commitment I have made to live every day of my life on purpose.