I have had a love for pictures for a long time! It started with those throw away cameras and getting my Mama to develop the actual pictures after I came home from church camp and then I remember the first digital camera I got, it was about the size of my hand and then I remember my parents getting me another 2 really nice digital cameras over the course of the years. My external hard drive crashed and I lost all those pictures I took in middle and high school. I was literally sick to my stomach! Since then I have started backing up to Amazon Drive and an external hard drive.
Anyways, when I was in college I saved up my money and bought a DSLR and was able to get some really great pictures especially of sports and then capturing those still portraits with that blurred background made me really fall in love with taking pictures.
I learn something new about that camera almost each time I pick it up! I love following photographers while they are taking pictures of my family. I read tutorials and watch YouTube videos to learn about different features of the DSLR.
Joseph may get annoyed at the number of pictures I make him take, but he loves looking back over the ones that I have taken over the years. I love that just as simple as a snapshot in the house looks so high quality!
I’ve had mine for almost 10 years, but this is the next series that replaced mine. There are so many options–the big brands in SLR are Nikon and Canon, I went with Nikon because I had use my friends who had Nikons.
Nikon D3500 W/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR Black
I also highly recommend the flash that I got to help light up faces when you are indoors.
Nikon SB-900 AF Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras
And then my favorite, most used lens is my 35mm because it blurs the background nicely in a close up picture.
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras,2183,Black
If you are just getting started with taking pictures then don’t feel like you have to buy all the bells and whistles that I have listed here, the camera itself will be enough to start with and give you lots of amazing pictures!
Editing–when I first got into photography, someone told me for every hour of taking pictures, I would spend another hour editing. I needed to start our simple, so I went with Photoshop Elements. There are not too many features allowing me to focus my learning on just a few ways to edit. I love to be able to take items out of background easily so the eyes can focus on the subjects of the picture. And then brightening up the colors is another favorite of mine!
HopShop 