My name is Andrew and I have been serious about photography since Jan 2003 when I purchased a Canon D60 back when I was in college. It was a hefty price tag of $2300 but for some reason, I guess I was able to justify it. Perhaps I was young and naive at the time but I remember that I had a burning desire to get a DSLR. Now that I think about it, after spending 12 hours or more every single day in the dark room, I think it was finally taking a toll on me.
The constant breathing of developer, fixer and every other acidic chemical had reached it's toll. I remember there was this portrait of my niece that I was excited to develop but after I had developed my contact sheet, I was floored when a piece of dust embedded itself onto her face. The negative was ruined. Although we weren't allowed to use digital when I was an art student at UCI, I decided to go for it anyways. I remember this other time when everyone had their photos up for critique, my 11x14 print stood out because when I got my prints done at Costco, the chemicals they use are constantly cleaned out so the whites around my photo was bleach white! When everyone else had an off white border it made everyone else question my photo. Of course I bullshitted my way out and told my professor that I purchased new chemicals at the local photo shop.
Soon after I graduated from college, I ended up in weddings with a fellow college buddy. My dad had found me a client from a DJ buddy of his. Back in 2003, there was very little resources for wedding photography. So as you can imagine, my buddy and I had to learn everything as we went. We must have shot over 4000 images from a 8 hour wedding. Back then, no one shot RAW images cause, 1. Memory cards were too expensive. The average card everyone had was a 64mb to 128mb card. A 256-512 was pricey and the 1GB card was the holy grail! 2. Most software companies did not offer support for them at the time. So shooting good White Balance was important along with everything else. It's been quite a journey since that first shoot.
I just wanted to drop a quick intro and I will talk more about my beginnings later in other blog posts. So stay tuned. In the meantime, my goal is to rediscover photography again. The creative side that I lost many years ago and integrate it with the technical side that I learned over the last 12 years. I want to get lost in it again. It won't be easy but I guess that is apart of the fun.
So let's take a journey together, find new places and rediscover life all over again.
Andrew Manley