My name is Andy Waller and this is my first ever blog! I study journalism in Rathmines and want to be a radio journalist some day when I'm a grown up.
For the moment though I want to talk about one of my other favorite hobbies, which in the last two years or so, I have over-looked quite a lot, photography.
It all started in secondary school when my dad gave me his old Asahi Pentax camera, which is a beautiful film camera which I didn't know how to use. I found out the hard way that you couldn't just point and shoot with this camera, it was all about light settings, shutter speeds, where the sun was at different parts of the day and even if I hadn't got steady hands and I needed a tripod.
After getting back a few ruined film roles from pharmacies, I decided that I would never ruin another role of film and I would actually learn to use the camera properly. I then went to college for the first time to study computer science and joined the Photo Soc (Photography Society) almost straight away to try and learn more about cameras and how to get the most out of them. At the end of my second year there I had bought a Canon 1000D for myself as a starter camera with a fixed 50mm lens (Wide Angle) and started learning about lenses and what they can do.
After taking a year out of college to do an internship and think about what was next for myself in life, I decided to do a photography course in Sallynoggin (yes that is as far away as it sounds) to try and learn more about getting the right picture at the right time and how to do about that, rather then just pointing and clicking.
I got to go in and learn how to use a dark room and develop and print my own pictures from the Asahi. This meant getting the lighting right at the shot and not having Photoshop to fall back on if something went wrong. I started to learn all about the different chemicals used, the paper used and what not to do if you drop a scissors in the dark room when stuck in there with a lecturer and the film was out and any light would have destroyed everything on it.
After making mistakes with some shots, I started to get to grips with the art and started wanting to just go out and keep shooting.
So that is how the idea of this blog came about. This will be a space where I share my weekly adventures with my Canon and talk about the photographs, why they mean so much to me and how/or why I took them. You may even learn something.
The three shots I have this week come from my quiet place which is one of the piers at Dun Laghoire. It's the quiet pier and most of the time I get a nice place to just sit and think without distractions. Sometimes a jogger will run by or the pier police will take their dogs for a walk (I always get nervous when they pull up in their jeep for some reason and then two little dogs jump out!)
With these pictures however I may have cheated just a little. I didn't have my camera with me so I decided to just use my IPhone because I knew I had a busy weekend ahead of me and I couldn't carry my camera around. Next week I'll be showing you another beautiful place I go to get away and think and trust me, this is a beautiful spot! None of my posts will be Photoshopped (mainly because I don't own Photoshop).
So come back next week and see the world through my eyes! (love clichés)
Andy.
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