A Heart More Focused

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December 3, 2012 By Erika Zane

3 Dec

Do you want to know how I got into photography?

We bought our first SLR camera almost four years ago.

My husband and I were on vacation for our one year anniversary.  Andy had already expressed an interest in learning more about photography, when we realized we forgot our snapshot camera.  We were also in the beginning stages of planning for a family and thought it would come in handy through pregnancy and babies.  We found a camera shop, walked in, and bought the first one the guy recommended that fit our budget.  We weren’t too concerned with brand as we thought it would mostly be a family camera.

That alone would make you think my passion for photography came out of nowhere, but that wouldn’t really be accurate, so let me back up.

I still remember my first camera.  It was a little purple box not much bigger than the film you put in it that came with a matching photo album.  I still have it somewhere with pictures from my third birthday party at a nearby bowling alley.  I wanted to take pictures everywhere I went from that moment on.

Up until middle school, that is.  At that point I decided it was cooler to be in the pictures with my friends.  I still always had a camera with me at.all.times and if it broke it was quickly replaced.

It might also be worth mentioning that I grew up hearing photography terms.  My father dabbled in film photography before I was born and one of his best friends from high school was a professional photographer.  He even had a couple of antique cameras laying around.

So, you can probably guess what happened after Dylan was born.  I hogged the SLR we bought for Andy.  Ok, so maybe I wanted it for me all along… 🙂

Anyway, I liked to play around with the zoom and different lighting and I frequently kept it on the no flash auto mode.  Then, a little over a year ago, I went back out to Colorado to visit a few friends where my friend Ashley and I spent a little time talking about cameras and lenses.  I asked her questions about the different manual modes on my camera and though she didn’t know how my camera worked, she encouraged me to dig out the user manual.

Aaand that’s when I really started learning.  I bought a couple of lenses and started taking pictures of literally everything I could.

Now, I only shoot in full manual.  I bought a new camera about two months ago when I decided, though I love photographing my kids, I wanted some new material.  I decided to go for a new brand for a few reasons, but mostly it came down to, I knew I wasn’t going to stick with Sony for the long hall.  If I was going to start buying lenses and accessories, I wanted to find a brand I planned to stick with.  Every article I read talked about Nikon and Canon duking it out for first place and any other brand always coming in third at best.  More than anything, though, I just wanted to find the best camera, for the best value with the best reputation I could within my budget.

What camera do I have?  A Nikon D7000, the Nikor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens that it came with, and a Nikor 50mm f/1.8 portrait lens.  I found it pre-owned at a local camera shop that allows people to consign (NY Camera in Princeton).  They were practically new and I bought them for a very reasonable price.

I spent today working on adding some photos from my portfolio to my site.  I still have more work to do on my site, but if you’re interested in seeing my new design and some of my work: check this out.  And, if you live in the area and are interested in having some photos taken, just send me a quick email.  My prices are very reasonable and I provide full size digital images.

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About me

Hello and welcome.  It’s been a while.  For Lent this year I decided to fast from the thing that took too much of my attention from what is truly important: Social Media.  Though there are countless amazing benefits to Social Media, after about a month offline so far, there are seemingly just as many negatives.  I never realized how much of my brain had been hijacked by it.  I’ve had so many revelations about how much easier it is to move forward when I’m not constantly reminded of the past.  But I still want to record my family as they grow at this ridiculous speed and, I’m realizing, so many of our family’s memories are here.  Those along with so many of the struggles and stages we’ve worked through.  Maybe in the midst of COVID19 isolation and my kids around me so often, I’m brought back to a time when they were too young for school and with me so often.  Writing here during that time helped make up for the limited adult conversation in my days and the overwhelm provided by my… little treasures 😉 My husband, fur babies, three fiesty kids, and I hereby extend an invitation to visit this little sneak peak into our life. We’re super flawed and broken and there aren’t too many dull moments around here.  And I promise it’s not always as magical as some of my golden hour, sun-soaked images would suggest.  There’s usually too much coffee in my system and we welcome all the prayers.  Come on over if you want to process with me.

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