Meeting a Great Photographer

My house cleaning business puts me in contact with all sorts of interesting people; yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing photographer here in Nashville named Evan Baines. I had been talking to Evan's wife for about a week via email, and she had informed me that he is a photographer and pointed me to the direction of his website(s). Holy cow, was I stunned!

I showed up and began my basic tasks, but it wasn't long before Evan and I were talking about photography and he was showing me some of his favorite pictures. Man, this guy is the real deal. As someone who has been interested in photography as an art for some time, I've seen my share of photographs that really impressed me from time to time, and by different artists. And that is what Evan is - an artist. His photographs are not mere pictures captured by a lens; they are works of art.

Well, enough bragging on him; his work speaks for itself. It was just really cool to see the work of someone that I respect and find interesting. As a naturally intelligent and creative person, not many people intrigue or impress me. I'm generally bored with people that I meet on a daily basis. No offense, y'all.

Anyway, the point of this was that he explained aperture to me while I was there and I promise you, as many times as I've read it in books, it did not make sense until he showed me what exactly it is on the camera. I seriously saw a light bulb light up over my head. Of course, when I got home I broke out my camera ( I think it needs a name? ) and set it to "A" mode to immediately try out this new skill. It worked! I set a lower aperture and took a picture of my hand right in front of the camera lens. Voila! The background fades to a blur behind my crisply-detailed fingers. Cool!

Excited, I ran back inside and decided to let Studmuffin the cat out of the house for a little outdoor mini photo shoot. Maybe some pictures of him in front of some shrubs would make it look like he was in the jungle.

So that didn't work; cats are not only completely oblivious to any other living being not holding a bag of food, but they also have no concept of photography. The only thing I really accomplished by lying on the ground holding my camera and saying a sing-song "Studly! Studly!" was making my neighbors wonder if they should ask if I'd taken my medicine. I did get a couple of cute shots that my mom really liked of her grandcat. Then I went inside and messaged a pretty friend on Facebook to ask if she'd like to be a model for a play session this weekend. I'm finished with the cat.