When you're really young it can sometimes feel like everything you do has an end-game.  New skills are fodder for resumes & college applications.  Hobbies aren't really hobbies - they're competitive sports.  One of my favorite things about being a grown up is that I can do things for the simple joy of doing them, & I can continue being terrible at them for years to come because no one is going to grade me, no one is going to test me, & no one has any expectations of my improvement except me.

I took a black & white photography class in college, & it did not go well.  My assignments were befuddling because even when the images were decent, my professor told me I had done them incorrectly.  I was most looking forward to taking the class because my grandfather left my mom a huge collection of antique cameras upon his passing, one of which was perfect for the class.  After seeing the first set of pictures I developed, my professor said it was a terrible camera & made me borrow one from the school.  Had the course been anything except an intro art class, maybe having a top-of-the-line camera would have mattered, but the only thing I accomplished by the end of the semester was being totally afraid to try anything with a camera again.

I follow the blog A Beautiful Mess, and these ladies take so so many pictures.  They know how to tell stories with images which really draws me in the same way reading a graphic novel does.  Not only do they take digital photos, they also use analog - meaning they have to actually develop film.  Fun!  It was this blog that inspired me to stop caring about whether I was any good behind the lens, so I bought myself an analog camera from Lomography & started shooting.  And my mom is soon to bequeath upon me her camera collection, so I'm well on my way to mediocrity.  Yay!

I'm not yet at the point where I walk around with my camera around my neck at all times, but I do like to take photos with my smart phone using the Android app Retro Camera.  The best thing about this app it makes everyone seem like a professional photographer; none of the pictures look like anything less than retro perfection!

I just really like looking at pretty pictures, so aside from A Beautiful Mess, I love NPR's The Picture Show.  The Sartorialist is a popular fashion blog with lovely images, & the book is worth a check out.  Visual Stories by Vincent Laforet is enthralling, especially the pictures of neighborhoods shot from a plane window; the neighborhoods look slightly unreal as if toys or models (much like the fantastic rowing scene in The Social Network).  The most astounding group of photos I've perhaps ever seen are from an article we shared on our Facebook page a few months ago that featured pictures a century old that look like they were taken yesterday.

Are you a photography geek?  Or would you like to be, like myself?  We have tons of books on photography covering everything from famous photographers to how to use your digital SLR to figuring out Adobe Photoshop.  Stop by & check some out; we'd be happy to help you find them.