A simple entry here. When I first got a DSLR, I was so excited that I went around shooting everything, on full automatic. The only thing I was controlling was the frame, and even that not so much since I was hitting the button like a squirrel in an experiment hits the lever to get the cheese.
As I’ve said many times before, the pedagogical loop involved in a device that feeds you results instantly and lets you see the difference between different compositions is pretty damn powerful. But there’s also the wonderful stupidity of feeling like oh wow I made this beautiful thing that’s a really heady incentive to keep going. I took this shot and then I printed an inkjet version and I was like “this is, like, ART, man, holy cow”. I made a big canvas version of it (well, paid for one) and it’s still hanging in my office.
Despite the fact that it’s not really that great a photograph. After a while you find out that sunset bokeh is like sand at the beach, no big deal. Today if I were going to do this shot, I’d be somewhere else with the camera and I’d make manual decisions and it would be a different image even if it was the same basic subject.
But I wouldn’t have wanted someone to come in and dump all over my initial excitement, on the other hand. That’s the trick, even when you’re teaching yourself: stoke the fire and then you’ll be able to forge something more from it.