Don't like fishing

Never have. Read this with that in mind.

This whole photography thing is getting more and more exasperating for me. I discovered some FANTASTIC photography sources that tell you EVERYTHING you want to know about photography and share with you EVERY possible kind of photograph so that you might learn from examples. While these things are a phenomenal resource for me, it is almost too much to be able to swallow. You throw yourself into these forums and see the miraculous things that people are putting forth from theirs (your very same) camera and you wonder WHY isn't MY camera spitting out images like that?

The problem is, the answer that echo's back is a quite resounding "Because of YOU!"

Learning about aperture and shutter speed, ISO and white balance...it is all a bit overwhelming. Like learning a new language and a new artform all at once. And it can get SUPER discouraging just NOT 'getting' what you envision a shot to look like to appear as such in the viewfinder or on the screen.

Anyway. I say all this-NOT because I am fishing for compliments. I say this because, while I recognize that I take pretty nice pictures, I am using my camera more as a point and shoot than as the great tool that it is. I am not utilizing its' fullest potential in the way that I want to, and I am SURELY not getting to where I want to be as quickly as I want to be there. And the only limitations it has, is ME.

This weekend I tried to experiment with the camera, and take control of the end results by manually adjusting everything. I decided I would focus on shutter speed-and tried to capture movement. Overall, it was wildly unproductive and my results were measely. I took SO many pictures of the same thing, just to capture what I wanted-and even then, I didn't. Of the dozens of failures, these are the very few that were salvagable.