Mama's photography journey

Almost 4 days after the fact, having managed some half-decent pictures of the new year's fireworks still feels like a major accomplishment.
It actually feels a bit strange to realise that the DSLR that I took all those pictures with had only been with me for slightly less than 2 years (the battery of which is currently MIA because Mama had a brain fart when she removed the said battery from the charger. Dang! I'd better find it soon. Have a whole list of pics to take.)

The DSLR was really not planned. I was making some noise about not having a proper working camera since my old point and shoot finally died after being thrown by the baby Kecil. Then came the Mr. Husband's birthday, and an invitation to meet up the in-laws in Singapore, and suddenly I got a huge DSLR dumped on my lap. Quite literally.
Not even knowing how to operate the controls, it was really quite a scary piece of technology then. And I'd say the first subject I took pretty much mirrored what I felt then.

(a manyun Kecil. Arr... the current photographer in me totally bemoans the so many things wrong with this pic: lack of focus, colour balance. OMG!)

After a quick glance through the manual (very quick, just to pick up a few, very basic things), the camera was set on auto settings, and we managed some better pics. Good thing the city lent itself well to good pictures.

So the camera came home with Mama, who then started using all kinds of subjects for practice, including the neighbour's kids.

It was certainly something to get used to, a DSLR, a few major things to adjust being the size, the weight, and the bulk of the camera. Mama's hand was almost ready to break after taking the next self portrait:

Still, it was really cool to be able to take pictures at night:

In any case, the experimentation (and learning) continued, with Mama taking in various subjects, including pets and inanimate objects:

The following year, Mama has yet another trip to the Lion City, and visitors to capture:

A new gadget followed to revolutionise the workflow ...

The gadget is the orange one. It simply serves better coffee, I swear. Revolutionary, right? (Also, you do know I'm just joking, right? With the new laptop, I actually got a better photo management software. Hence, the revolution. The coffee did help, though.)

Another trip, this time with the purchase of a new photographic equipment, a new lens:

With which I started seeing the beautiful bokeh I had been gawking from other's pictures:

With the switch to RAW format, Mama learned a thing or two about post-processing:

Also including silhouette in her repertoire:

I've gone quite a bit from the clueless girl holding a huge piece of technology she wasn't quite sure to use. Me thinks she's gone to a girl with a camera. Haha... But there is still so much room for improvement, colour management being an area of particular concern.

For the nth time, this year I am embarking again on a 365 journey, to be documented on the photoblog. At the same time, I am also looking for better organisation of the huge photo library, which means some incorporation of tags (or keyword in my own library). Perhaps once I've made some progress with that, I'll share that here. Here's hoping for a good year with big and small accomplishments towards the bigger goals. Cheers!