My brother Chris was trained as a professional photographer.  He went to Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara.  This training shows up in the beauty of his photography.  We here at RegenAxe have been privileged in the past to feature some of his photos on this blog.

Included with this post are two portraits that Chris sent us this week.  The first picture shows two of Chris’ friends, Gemma and Palo, on the beach at Carmel-by-the-Sea.  The second one shows Frank, our other brother and Kathy, our sister-in-law, at Nepenthe in Big Sur.  I’m surprised that with all of the rainstorms that they have been having, they were able to drive down the coast highway.  I had heard that it was washed out.

Training and the learned attention to detail are important elements to good photography, but so is having a “good eye”.  A good eye means being able to look at a scene and see the perfect shot.  It is commonly said that a person is born with a “good eye”, it cannot be learned.  I don’t disagree with this thought, but I also believe that anyone with an interest in photography must have some form of this “good eye” or why else the interest in the first place?

The third leg of the tripod that supports a photographer’s craft is his equipment.  Chris has always had the best of camera equipment.  When I visited California last month, I put the bug in Chris’ ear that it was time for him to upgrade his digital camera.  I didn’t expect that this suggestion would bear fruit as quickly as it did.  The week after I returned home, Chris made me an offer that I could not refuse.  Pictured above is Chris’ old camera, my new camera, a Canon EOS 5D.  Not pictured, but also included with the camera is a flash unit and an extra battery grip.

Chris upgraded to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  Since all of his lenses were transferable, he did not want to part with any of them.  So my new camera languished lens-less in its box, for about a month.  On Tuesday, Anne and I went to Schiller’s Camera and purchase a lens for the camera.  I dragged Anne along to act as the responsible adult and was glad that I did.  Otherwise, I would have been defenseless to tender mercies of the all too savvy sales clerks there.  I saw another customer there who but for Anne could have been me.  His attending sales clerk seemed to be just toying with him as he wrestled with his purchasing decision and his own private demons.

So now that I have this marvelous piece of technology, I have to learn how to use it.  I should start with the manual, but I think instead that I will just start taking pictures with it.  I already know how to use the camera in automatic mode, so I can start there.  Only time will tell if my leap from point-and-shoot to SLR will be successful, but it should be fun finding out.