Introduce Yourself & Welcome Other Members (archive)

[Eyesontoast]

Thats great to hear cause there is so much to photography when it gets technical. Thanks Donald.

[Danaf]

Hi, My name is Dana. I'm a SAHM of 3 young kiddos wanting to improve my photography skills, so one day I can consider myself a professional photographer. Recently I started a 365 challenge - you take a picture everyday for a year. I'm getting great feedback from family and friends. Now I would like to see how I'm doing in the photography world. Plus I love to view other peoples work.

[Donald]

Hi, My name is Dana. I'm a SAHM of 3 young kiddos wanting to improve my photography skills, ...

SAHM? Aahh - Stay at home mum?

Hello and welcome, Dana. Great to have you here and thanks for deciding to sign up.

As you've maybe already seen, CiC is very much a learning community. So, for anyone and everyone who wants to test and push themselves towards learning new things and new skills, then this is, I think, one of the best places you can be.

As well as all the help and support that will be available here on the forum, there are, of course, the tutorials, which are generally regarded as amongst the best around and are cited by many, many other resources on the net.

So, please do join in. Ask lots of questions. look at the work of others. And, of course, post up some of your own work for comment and criticism.

[So was Red]

Hey eveyrone

I'm Xaris, living in Athens, Greece, and took up photography as a hobby a bit more seriously about a year ago. I'm really glad to find such a friendly and information-abundant community. I was motivated to join after reading a few of the tutorials, and I must say Hats off to the person who devotes the time and effort to make them available!
My only 'issue' is that English is not my mother tongue and I'm not that familiar with the technical staff, so I'm rather reluctant to post. But I'll get over that I guess.

Cheers
Xaris

[Colin Southern]

Hey eveyrone

I'm Xaris, living in Athens, Greece, and took up photography as a hobby a bit more seriously about a year ago. I'm really glad to find such a friendly and information-abundant community. I was motivated to join after reading a few of the tutorials, and I must say Hats off to the person who devotes the time and effort to make them available!
My only 'issue' is that English is not my mother tongue and I'm not that familiar with the technical staff, so I'm rather reluctant to post. But I'll get over that I guess.

Cheers
Xaris

Hi Xaris,

Welcome to CiC - it's great to have you with us

Don't worry about your English - it's a LOT better than my Greek, and we have many many many folks here for whom English isn't their first language (and we all do just fine).

The tutorials were all written by Sean McHugh ("McQ" here) - he's also the site owner.

Just curious as to why you choose "So was Red" for a username?

[So was Red]

Hey Colin
Thanks for the warm welcome!

My username is a 'tribute' to 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption, a really powerful movie and one of my favourites.



Cheers
Xaris

[Lexie in NZ]

Hello,

I have been interested in photography for about 30 years and have finally been able to upgrade to a digital SLR - having so much fun learning how to get the best from it.

I am studying towards a Diploma in Photography and found this site while looking for information on how to change colour pictures to B&W. I haven't read all the tutorials yet, but the ones I have read are fantastic - I think they are just the right balance of detailed explanation aimed at the newcomer who doesn't know much and technical information for the experienced photographer

Looking forward to being able to pick the brains of fellow photographers and learning lots.

Lexie

[Donald]

I have been interested in photography for about 30 years and have finally been able to upgrade to a digital SLR - having so much fun learning how to get the best from it.

Hello Lexie.

I wish the Scottish rugby team was still in New Zealand, but ...........!

Anyway, back to photography. A very warm welcome and thanks fro deciding to 'sign-up'.

I'm glad you like the tutorials you've read so far. This forum aims to complement them by carrying on the theme of learning. You'll find lots of poeple on here with significant amounts of knowledge and experience that they are only too happy to share with others. All you need to do is ask the questions and post the images up for comment.

And don't worry - posting up the first image is always the hardest. You sit there with your finger over the 'submit' button thinking, "What are they going to think? What will they say? Will anyone even reply?" Go for it. I think you'll find that people on CiC are constructive in their approach and, as I say, focused on helping others learn and develop.

In terms of conversion to B & W, that's my particular interest. Have a look at my own site (link below) and perhaps we will then exchange comments on the forum about aspects of B & W photography.

[Lexie in NZ]

I wish the Scottish rugby team was still in New Zealand, but ...........!

You and me both Donald I'm Scots, have been in NZ 16 years now, but still want to see Scotland do well at rugby. At least the Hastings boys are still here, part of the commentary teams for various matches.

I was browsing through your site as you were replying to my post - very atmospheric pictures . I really like the snowy scenes, especially Wall and Two Trees 1 and 2.

It is tricky to know where to start when posting pictures, asking questions and giving comments on the work of others - I guess the best way is just to jump straight in!

Lexie

[Donald]

You and me both Donald I'm Scots

Ach, we still get everywhere. Where are you from?

It is tricky to know where to start when posting pictures, asking questions and giving comments on the work of others - I guess the best way is just to jump straight in!

Absolutely. Go for it.

[Lexie in NZ]

Ach, we still get everywhere. Where are you from?

I grew up in the north east, studied in Edinburgh and was living in the Borders before moving to NZ, still think of the Borders as home

Absolutely. Go for it.

My course assignment for this week is B&W. I made the attached picture in the local cemetery - this is quite tightly cropped from the original and converted from colour to B&W. I did this before I had done much research about the most effective methods of converting to B&W, so was really just trying different settings in the RAW window of Photoshop. (PS and I are not friends, but that's a whole 'nother story)

All comments and suggestions for improvement gratefully received.

Thanks,
Lexie

[Donald]

Lexie

I'm going to ask you to copy that post above into the Nature & Architecture section of the forum. That and the 'People and Pets' sections are where you need to post images that you want people to comment on. (It's easy once you get the hang of it).

We don't have lots and lots of separate sub-sections on CiC in the same way that some forums do. We just have the two. And no-one gets too fussed about which one you decide to put images into it. the important this is posting them up and getting involved.

What you do is:

• Click on Forums up at the top
• Then click on Nature & Architecture
• Then click on 'Post New Thread' that you see near the top left.
• And away you go - Give your image a title and then just type in what you've typed above. And hit 'Submit New Thread' at the bottom of the window.

Just go ahead with that. In the meantime, I'm going to send you a message about how to post images into your messages. But don't worry about that for this one.

[Lexie in NZ]

Lexie

I'm going to ask you to copy that post above into the Nature & Architecture section of the forum. That and the 'People and Pets' sections are where you need to post images that you want people to comment on. (It's easy once you get the hang of it).

thanks for the help Donald, I'll shift the picture to a new thread - will have to be tomorrow though, it's a bit too late in the evening to be getting all technical and starting a new thread now

Lexie

[Colin Southern]

Hey Colin
Thanks for the warm welcome!

My username is a 'tribute' to 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption, a really powerful movie and one of my favourites.



Cheers
Xaris

Hi Xaris,

Thanks for the info -- I think I remember the movie. What that the one where one of the inmates was a banker, and he earns some beers for his fellow inmates by giving some "tax optimisation" advice to one of the guards?

[Colin Southern]

You and me both Donald I'm Scots, have been in NZ 16 years now, but still want to see Scotland do well at rugby.

I guess you can still "fall back" on the All Blacks as your national team

Won't be long now

(I guess I can "fall back" on my British passort "in case of emergency"!)

[blueldc]

Hi, all,

I'm Lisa. I have been focusing on learning my camera and the art of photography for about 6 months now. I got tired of being frustrated with the auto settings- time to get real! I am a working mom, so time is limited, but I do the best I can. Feedback is the best learning tool there is so I hope I've come to the right place.

[Donald]

I got tired of being frustrated with the auto settings- time to get real!

Wonderful. Now, as you say, to get real about being a maker of images rather than just a shooter of photos.

Lisa - It's great to have you here on CiC. And, yes, I think you have come to the right place.

#1 - You are really encourage to ask every and any sort of photography related question
#2 - There is no such thing as a dumb question on CiC

The banner at the top of the homepage says 'Learning Community' and that is very much what we want this forum to be: A place where people can take learning at their pace, but be confident that there are going to be people with vast amounts of knowledge and experience, willing to help and advise.

And finally for the moment, You've maybe seen that most of us tend to use our real names on here. It makes communication more friendly and CiC is that sort of site. Did you know you can go to Edit Profile and enter your proper name under 'Real Name'. Then it will appear underneath your Username in all your posts. You can also enter your location so that it does the same, just as in my details alongside this message. Then we all know where everyone is in the world.

[Colin Southern]

Hi, all,

I'm Lisa. I have been focusing on learning my camera and the art of photography for about 6 months now. I got tired of being frustrated with the auto settings- time to get real! I am a working mom, so time is limited, but I do the best I can. Feedback is the best learning tool there is so I hope I've come to the right place.

Hi Lisa,

A big welcome from me too - great to have you with us. A working mum eh - wow, you have suffered

How old are your kids?

PS: Don't worry about the name thing Donald suggested - I've just popped that in for you.

[Lexie in NZ]

I guess you can still "fall back" on the All Blacks as your national team

Won't be long now

(I guess I can "fall back" on my British passort "in case of emergency"!)

I'll rummage on the family tree and see if there are any Irish ancestors I can claim It would be good to see the AB's win, but they've choked too many times in the past for me to have huge confidence in them!

Lexie

[Colin Southern]

Hi Lexie,

I'll rummage on the family tree and see if there are any Irish ancestors I can claim

It would be good to see the AB's win, but they've choked too many times in the past for me to have huge confidence in them!

LOL - you sound just like me! I think we're off to a good start, but more than one associate could testify to the fact that I've said "I wonder which phase they'll choke in this time" several times in the past few months!

Which part of NZ are you hiding in?