Weekly Blog Post 7

I wouldn't consider myself an expert at photography by any means, but I enjoy it and I have some experience with it. I just got a new camera, a Nikon Coolpix S220, which is not the most high-quality, top-notch camera out there, but it works well for what I use it for. I mostly use photography to take pictures when I hang out with friends or go on trips so it's nothing that serious, but it's fun and I always enjoy going back and looking at pictures. Pictures help me remember things and are a lot easier to share with other people. I would rather go through and look at someone's vacation pictures than hear them tell me all about the trip. Like the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

I really like playing around with different camera settings and filters. Black and white photos are my favorite because I like the visual appeal of them. They are very simple and classic, and I think they look more artsy than standard color photos. I do like color, but black and white or sepia works better with some photos. Generally, I think black and white is better for more formal pictures of people, but color is better for things like landscapes or informal pictures. I had a lot of my senior pictures done in black and white, and those were my favorites, but I usually just use color when goofing around with my friends.

I'm getting more into photography lately because my dad is an amateur photographer, and he is very good at it. He has several cameras for different uses, and has shown my brothers and I how to use them and what they are for. We have a darkroom in our basement because he develops his own film, and I would like to learn how to do that. It's really interesting to me, but I just haven't been home enough or had the time to work on it.