"Anyone can take a picture. A person with a passion sees the picture before it's taken" — Anonymous

 

I bought my first camera with the intention to sell things on ebay. Back in the early digital days of photography, the camera offered a humbling 1.3 Megapixel resolution, but it was enough the get me hooked on photography, taking a photograph of anyone or anything, just to try things out. In the beginning, it was just shooting for fun, as many people nowadays do that never really learned how to take photographs.

 

Although digital was fast, the quality back in the late 90s was still mediocre at best. As I wanted to do more serious shooting, I switched over to an analog pro-gear Nikon F100 SLR, and scanned in the negatives with a slide-film scanner for editing.

The analog pictures were superb quality-wise, but costly, if one used professional slide film. Taking pictures with the analog SLR was different to shooting digital: it became a more deliberate act. One had to envision how the picture should look like, and for the pictures to really look good, it took some learning to get things right. In retrospective, I think that going this route - instead of staying digital - made me a better photographer.

 

I held onto the analog camera for a long time, up till 2007, when I switched to a Nikon D200 and to a D3 later on. Shooting completely digital allowed new techniques to be discovered, such as using high dynamic range (HDR) or panoramic photography. In analog times, an old photographer's saying was that "one significant photograph in a roll of 36 frames is a good crop". This also holds true for digital, even if we don't shoot slide film anymore.

 

Shooting digital allows me to still be deliberate about what I shoot and how I compose the overall picture, but try out more things at the same time. I may take 30 photos of one landscape view, just to combine batches of 7 or 9 pictures to one HDR picture.

 

For me, an ideal picture must stand out. It should capture a moment in a way that is vibrant. Convey the feelings and emotions without the need to explain anything. Show the color and details as if you were right where the photograph was taken. Simple be breath-taking.

 

Nowadays, anyone can take pictures. Taking great pictures is what makes the difference.