I got my first camera when I was a kid. It was a little point & shoot and I loved the way it felt. I loved looking through a view finder to frame something specific. I loved hearing the shutter and the act of advancing the film. I loved anticipating what would come back after getting them developed. Fast forward to my college graduation – I got my first Nikon film SLR as a gift from my grandparents. A whole new world opened up to me because I now had control of the photos I was creating. I took a class to get a full understanding of the basics and then set out to create, but boy film was expensive.
In 2003 I finally decided to try a digital camera – a Fujifilm Finepix. It offered a little bit more control than a point and shoot, but was basically automatic. It hurt a little bit to move away from film, but the world was moving to digital and it was time for me to try. All the sudden the expense of learning quickly vanished and I could happily experiment away. But I missed the control. In 2005 I received an unexpected cash award at work and decided to splurge – I bought my first DSLR, a Canon 20D. And wow, was my world rocked! I happily clicked away at gorgeous landscapes, animals, flowers, people, basically anything and everything that caught my attention.
And then life happened – I met my husband, got married and soon we were expecting our first child. All of the sudden my focus went from photographing everything to zooming in on life. People. Babies. Capturing the moments that I knew were fleeting, trying to freeze them so that in twenty years we can look back at how different and small and wonderful our child was and how our lives have changed. And I loved it.
So my journey continued. I started to hone my craft. I started to learn more about editing, started to experiment with composition, and I started reading and learning as much as I could from other photographers. Within this journey I upgraded camera two more times (went from a 40D to the 5DMarkII) and bought and sold a bunch of lenses (I now have a canon 24-70L II, 16-35mm/2.8 L, 70-200m/2.8L II, and a 50mm/1.4). I also had another son, quit my 14-year career at Microsoft to stay home with my boys, and kept learning.
And I am still learning. But I have also decided to share what I have learned and what I am learning. There are so many wonderful people who I have never met that imparted their wisdom, their experience, and their advice to others for free and I have gobbled it up. I feel it is time for me to give back. Even if I only help one person out there, that makes it worth it.
The next step in my journey is simple, yet so daunting as well. It is time for me to share not only what I have learned, but what I do.
Welcome to Lisa Halbert Photography!