Many years later, I got bit by the photo bug again. I bought a Minolta and started shooting in black and white. I was really enjoying myself, but then things happened that killed my creativity. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

About four years ago I once again caught the bug. I had given the Minolta to my daughter, who was (and still is) taking photography courses in school. I decided that if I was going to get back into this hobby, I would give digital a try. I went through a series of digital cameras before I settled on one I really liked; the Nikon Coolpix 5700.

I dove into this hobby pretty hard. I was shooting about 100-200 pictures a day, taking my camera with me wherever I went. Work, baseball, grocery store, wherever I was, I had my Nikon. Have camera, will travel. It's a funny thing about having photography as a hobby. You tend to see the world and everything in it a bit differently. Everything is a potential picture. Nothing is just an object. You notice colors and shades of colors and light and symmetry. Tiny little objects that may have gone unseen to your eye before suddenly shot out at you. The way the water glass sits on the edge of the desk. The light coming off the corner of the picture frame. An abandoned umbrella laying in the street. They are all potential shots. My eyes changed. My line of vision changed. I can look at the same tree one hundred times and see a different photograph each time. The pictures may not always come out like I see them in my camera-focused eye, but at least the experience of taking the picture makes me see things in the world around me in a whole new light.

And therein lies the beauty of digital photography. I can take 100 shots of that one tree without feeling like I’m wasting film or that it will cost me a small fortune to get these things developed. I can experiment. I can change the light, change the focus, change the view. I’m not a skilled photographer. I’m not into the technical aspects of it. I just get something in my mind’s eye, think it will make a great shot and I shoot it. If it comes out like I crap, I hit delete and look at the next one I took or try again.

The ability to shoot, trash, shoot, trash, etc., got me these results:

It was hard work getting these shots just the way I wanted them, the way my mind first envisioned them, but getting these final results - well, it sure feels good to finally get other people to see the vision you had in your head.

I also love digital for doing people shots. Sometimes you just want to keep shooting because you know that kid is going to make just the right face or look at you from just the right angle. I could never do that with film because I needed each click to be the most perfect picture it could be. Not so here. Each of these were the results of patience, lots of clicking, and a little stealth on my part:

I didn't really talk about the technical aspects of digital photography here; I'll leave that to the experts. I'm just about experimenting and having fun. -M

FTTW Photography appears every Saturday. This general column appears bi-weekly and Life in Black in White - a column about shooting in b/w film, appears every other week.

If you are interested in writing an article for the general photography column, contact us at submissions@fasterthantheworld.com

This week's column was written by Michele