Run, run, run...as fast as you can!

A true moment of childhood. I like candids. :)

Why I Love Photography...

In all my childhood memories, I see my father lugging round his big Canon SLR and I can hear the click of the shutter and the whirring of the autofocus. I always wanted to have a go myself and, on the occasion, I loved it. For my 7th birthday I got a little film camera, just a compact, and I loved it. I took it everywhere with me. I liked the fact that I could look at my pictures and evoke memories I forgot I had. I still have my little compact, sitting as a memento on my fireplace. My mother purchased a little digital camera when I was 11 and I loved being able to see the instant results when she let me use it. Then I got a Kodak camera and, like my film compact, I took it absolutely everywhere. I became known to people as "the girl with the camera". It was fun to be able to capture a moment in time and preserve it forever.Then I found ILP. I learned that there was more to photography than pressing one button and voila! I am still more interested in the romantic side of it....the expression on someone's face or the smile. But now I know how to manipulate the camera so I can get the best photograph possible! I had some savings and I purchased a 1981 Pentax film camera....I loved it but after 3 rolls of film, it died. It's up on the fireplace though! With the compact. I started using my father's canon, the one from all the memories, but with sluggish autofocus and a serious grain complex....I couldn't afford (on my 15 year old allowance) to continue buying and developing film at the same rate that I wanted to take photographs. So my parents, beloved as always, stepped in and offered to buy a digital body if I bought the lens. Seems like a great deal to me!Next week my digital slr will arrive along with a 50mm lens and I cannot wait until I can start capturing memories again. It seems odd that, now my film slrs are just keepsakes, two whole months of memories have gone un-documented....

A Trip to the Ocean.

Well, I haven't had a camera for four weeks and it sure is frustrating! Not too long to wait now hopefully though. =} I am sick at home with nothing much to do so I thought I'd share some of my film images from this past July (2006) that I took at the English coast. I had a lovely time and came back with some lovely photographs!

Morning!

More like, evening, actually!
Just wanted to drop you a note so the blog isn't completely empty! And tell you a little about me.

I'm Louise and have experimented with blogs here, there and everywhere without success for a while now! I still can't figure out how to add a logo (anyone wish to enlighten me?!).... Now with the advent of my "real" photography obssession coming near I thought I'd start again and really get the show on the road. =)

I have a couple of neat hobbies that I love but photography and writing are my passions. I love to capture a moment and savour a little slice of time with a still image. With my images I try to tell a story and evoke emotions (still got a long way to go though)! I'm one of those people who attributes 99% of their talent to their camera. With writing I do give myself some credit but with photography, it's a completely different story. So you can guess how delighted I am about my new DSLR, a Nikon D50, currently weaving its way from America through postal vans and offices and airplanes. Not to say other photographers who haven't got an slr should stop trying, I'm just stubborn and disobedient I guess!

I have been dabbling in photography since I was ten....and have always loved to take pictures. I really got serious about it around Easter time 2006 when I got to take a few photographs on a digital SLR of a family friends. Boy, I was hooked! The cameras I've had have been compact and automatic but the thought of actually being able to mould and create a photograph using all kinds of settings was new to me and I sure was excited about it. With that in mind I saved up a little money and bought a Pentax film SLR from 1981 - that camera is a beauty, but very old. It took some great pictures on my holiday at the English coast. It really is a lovely camera but it was getting past its time and is now sitting on my mantelpiece as a keepsake, half broken and still with a roll of Ilford in it. Plus it's an aperture priority camera exclusively and I really wanted to try my hand at a fully manual camera.

I love film, I do. But I also find it frustrating because you can't see your results straight away and I'm not so patient sometimes. I went from my Pentax to a Canon EOS 650 that had a serious grain complex and auto focus was broken. Still it was a pretty cool camera. I got to learn how to use manual focus pretty well and learned some great things about backlighting.

And now here I am, kind of at a double crossing - film or digital? I've chosen digital (thanks to my lovely lovely parents for making it possible) because I think I'll benefit more from it in the long run and I've come to a love-hate relationship with film because of all the frustration I've had with it!

My photos are still a long way from great and I have lots to improve on but I hope for this blog to be a document of my photographic progression and a way in which I can display my pictures.
Oh, and if you're still wondering, why Banana Jam as the name? I'm clueless too. It just came to me in the middle of the night and I thought it was cool. Quirky and quaint and cooolll.... well, in my opinion!

See you around.
Lu (did I mention I'm 15 years old?)