For those of you that don’t know me personally, I thought I’d introduce myself, this blog, my web site, and my business.
I’ve been interested in photography since I was 10 or so. I got my start in a city-sponsored program in my hometown of
Meriden, CT. The city gave use film, a darkroom with all the chemicals and equipment, and paper to print the photos on. We just had to supply our own (35mm film!) cameras. I got a
Pentax K-1000 and shot endless rolls of pictures. Good times… and a new hobby was born.
As I got into high school, adolescence reduced the time and inclination I had for photography. I still did some, buying a
Canon EOS Elan and some other gear, but it wasn’t a big part of my life. When the digital revolution really began to take off was in late 2003, when Canon began selling the
Digital Rebel, the first “consumer”-grade digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera. I bought a Digital Rebel in November of 2003, and haven’t looked back (although I migrated to a
Digital Rebel XT, and now an
EOS 40D).
That was 75,000 pictures ago. Sometimes our hobbies become addictions.
What did I shoot 75,000 pictures of? Anything. Everything. I made a point to travel and see new places, and try to document what I experienced, photojournalistic-style, so you can feel what I felt in those places. Sometimes this works out better than others… but I do try.
I took another big step a few years back when I joined two local camera clubs back in CT, the
Castle Craig Camera Club, and the
Wallingford Camera Club. A camera club is generally a group of photo enthusiasts, from amateurs up to pros, that have regular meetings that are usually either instructional or competitions. Each month’s competition is open to anyone, and has different levels of competition so that everyone has a level playing field. Usually, one category each month has a specific topic, and this was one of my favorite categories. Those that know me can attest that I’m quite competitive at times, and a semi-perfectionist, if there is such a thing.
I won a number of competitions in these clubs, as well as at area fairs in the autumn. I even joined the board of directors at the WCC, where I brought the first digital competition to the club three years back.
When I realized that I was in love with photography (and was good at it!), I began to buy more gear. Lots of it. The cameras aren’t the expensive part of this hobby; it’s definitely the glass (i.e. lenses). I’ve now got seven lenses to go with the two bodies I own. (I’ve sold 4 other lenses and my original D-Reb.) They say “bodies come and go, but glass is forever…” The more I invested in this “hobby”, I decided to form an LLC to take on paying work (and deduct costs from my taxes!).
Once the business was formed, I bought a web site to host my photos:
http://www.michaellandry.com/I selected
SmugMug as my host; they seemed to have the best features to support a serious photographer, although they also offer simpler options for amateurs. (Check out SmugMug, and test their free trial if you are looking for a good hosting provider. You can get $5 off if you use my discount code when you register:
VgtQnERYXaxXY ). My site now has over 3,000 photos on it, more than enough to keep you clicking for a while. The problem became that are so many pics, how would a visitor know what pictures are newly added? The answer is this blog.
On this blog, I’m going to post information about photography, my projects, my travel plans, and my latest photos. Bookmark this site and come back to visit next time you’re surfing around. Or, if you’d like to know when I post new content, you can subscribe by clicking the links to the left of this post in the "subscribe" section... (The direct ATOM feed URL is
http://mlpix.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) I'm trying to simplify this process, stay tuned...
Please provide feedback or comments on either this site, or the main photo site. Comments and critique are always welcome!
Thanks, and welcome to my world…
Michael Landry
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