Discovering a New Hobby

I never took that hobby of photography that I claimed I was going to start last year whilst in Spokane very seriously.  Blame it on the fact that we lived in a tiny apartment on the third floor, on my first time in snow, on the fact that I was in a small town that sometimes felt clausterphobic, or the sad truth... I got lazy (and pregnant).

But now.. in our new fantastic home with TONS of natural light... I have begun to experiment. Today, Jordan got in trouble and wasn't allowed to have Family Home Evening with his cousins. Instead, we ventured off to the nearby park and had a quick lesson and some fun on the playground.  While Andy and Jordan played, I lay on a mat and took photos of Bubba and the scenery.  The scenery photos are boring, just a bunch of trees with sunlight poking from behind and me trying to figure out if I got more or less light, more or less focused with each button on my manual setting.  It was fun though!

In my own humble opinion, not bad for a beginner.  HAHAHAHA.  But seriously, so much fun.  That's all I want to do with photography.  Capture photos of my kids... significant family events... etc.  I know a lot of moms end up doing photography on the side to earn cash (so awesome right? and kind of a Mormon thing but really just a mom thing), but that seems like a huge weekend commitment and BlueSky is amazing and my skillset is really more with spreadsheets, operations, and people anyway, but as a hobby?  SO MUCH FUN!  

And, I have a well defined plan that lays out the journey I hope to take with photography.  I will play with the manual settings wherever I go, until I know pretty immediately exactly what aperture, shutter speed and ISO I need for the existing light I have around me.  Then, I will venture into learning how to edit photos.  Meanwhile, I will experiment with my own creativity and shots that I envision in my head or, let's be real, what I've seen and like and want to mimic (isn't imitation the best form of flattery?!).  Next, I will check out some photography books from the library and begin to read more about the mechanics of photography.  Lastly, I will make a goal of purchasing an additional expensive lens that may help me obtain the creative shots I will want at that point.  Let's see how far I get! Oh and somewhere in the middle, I want to ask for a remote control so I can take photos with myself in them!  HEHEHE.  The automatic timer combined with our tri-pod is good for now.  

New Hobby... Definitely? Maybe...

I don't have many hobbies I take seriously.  I'm a flake like that. I would like to devote some time to improve my sewing skills, my other miscellaneous crafting skills, getting aerobic certified, and I sincerely love reading, but with the mom gig, the part time job thing, the I'd rather work out and blog or write thing, and then of course the trying to keep the house orderly and a place the Spirit can dwell with all the never ending laundry, dishes, and cooking that is part of family life thing, there doesn't seem to be much time for anything else.  And let's face it, in order to get good at anything - you have to work and work and work at it.  Time is of the essence.  And effort too I suppose.

So, like most people I have done the P word.  Prioritize.  Yeah, it's no fun - but it's part of life.  A lot of my priorities change and get rearranged, but one that doesn't is family.  And one thing that I am obsessed with doing in regards to family is documenting everything that happens.  Before the days of digital photos, I was always carrying around a hand held camera, developing film (freshman year, we spent hours after school in the black room of the Photography studio but try as I might, I don't remember how we developed the film anymore), and capturing the moments of my teenage years, all whilst journaling about it here and there in a diary of some sort, and later with the world of xanga (a type of blog way back when) and blogger.

Somehow, I was meant to become Mormon because upon doing so, I realized how much this hobby of mine is actually encouraged in the Church!  The Church History Library has just TONS of journals from the pioneer treks made back in the 1800's, along with a lot of family history preservation from old journals. It's all so fascinating to me, probably one of the reasons I love reading fiction based on actual historical events surrounding the Chinese Americans coming to America (think Joy Luck Club, Mona in the Promised Land, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Shanghai Girls, Fifth Chinese Daughter....and so on and so forth).

So upon reflecting on my interests in documenting, I thought I should maybe learn how to use that expensive camera Andy's parents got us two Christmases ago (that has been collecting dust and is not used often).  With my iPhone and small point n shoot, it's been overlooked often.  Yesterday, I started my self learning by reading free tutorials online and learning all about aperture (a hole that lets in light), shutter (the speed the camera opens and closes to take the photo), and ISO (no idea what it really means just know it's all about how much light which confuses me from aperture but hey, I'm a work in progress).  Of course I wanted to just buy an app with all my iTunes birthday money ($15 from Andy and $25 from work) for just $9.99, but Andy (the logical and even more frugal one) convinced me to explore the online world of free first.

Here's my first attempt.  At what?  I'm not sure.  Still learning.  It's a new hobby.  Definitely!  Well... maybe.  (ps that's one of my favorite movies - Definitely, Maybe with Ryan Reynolds!) And for selfish reasons (to document my family life), because who wants to pay someone else to do it when you can do it yourself?  Not me!

I know I'm 3/4 Asian mom, but really.. this is kinda too yellow, even for me. 

Just sitting over here with Daddy looking at the Lake mom!