I went to college, but not for music, recording, or even writing and editing. I obtained a degree in Communications, with an emphasis on Visual, plus a minor in Art with an emphasis on Studio. This meant most of my studies were in film, filmmaking, photography, graphic design, sculpture, ceramics, illustration, painting, and such. Photography was fun, and I was able to borrow an old Olympus 35 mm camera with a fixed wide-angle lens that my dad brought back from Japan in the '60s. (I was happy, but it was nothing as cool as the new Olympus OM-1 and Pentax LX that the rich kids at my college had!) I’d skipped taking photography classes in high school, though I don't recall why. In college, I quickly caught up as my real interest was film, and film and still photography had a lot in common. Taking photos and developing rolls and prints in the darkroom was an interesting process, though I'm glad I didn’t spend too many years around all those chemicals!
When I first started Tape Op, I initially would ask interviewees to provide me with photos of themselves. After John Baccigaluppi joined up, we began doing some bigger interviews, many in person, so it seemed judicious to take photos of our subjects in order to have unique ones to run that we owned. John's a good photographer, but I'm not. It had been so long since college that I was really out of practice with using a camera. Though I understand the concepts behind taking a good photo, I've forgotten what most of the terms mean. Digital cameras had (mostly) superseded film-based ones, adding another layer of confusing controls and features. My current DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T3 from 2012. The lens is pretty nice, and it can take great photos when used properly, but I manage to take some of the worst photos ever with it. Why is that?
I'm not even sure what all the knobs and buttons do. I only recently downloaded a manual, though I quickly got super bored reading it and gave up. I bought a used book, Canon EOS Rebel T3i / 600d for Dummies, by Julie Adair King, and have only read three paragraphs. It's a learning project I keep putting off, and every time I meet someone for an interview, I bring the camera and then realize I'm probably going to take a crummy photo because, once again, I have not figured out how to best use it. I'll pull out my Apple iPhone and take a few off-the-cuff photos just in case these somehow turn out better than my fancy camera, and sometimes they do. I really need to buckle down, learn a few basic settings, and get my photo skills in gear.