I'm an engineer, but I also take photos for my university's news paper (http://www.thesil.ca/), so I figure I'm not too bad of a photographer if my photos get printed every week. But I do suffer from the common affliction of gear whore-ism. That's when a photographer is more concerned with camera gear than photos. I do at times get very carried away with my gear, BUT I also do actually go and take photos and enjoy it! Right now my gear whore-ism is in a delicate balance of buying/selling and photographing.
I do take photos so I'm not 100% a gear whore as I said above, so I do have an ass-ton of camera gear. I'm also going to hopefully help you decide what kind of gear is right for you and what kind isn't. I'll also try to give some photography tips to those who actually think I do take good photos and want to know how I do it. One thing I will also try to do from time to time is just post some photos and talk about them, how I got them, why I like them, why I took the photo.
So, let's talk about this photo here (here's a bigger version http://www.flickr.com/photos/28858399@N06/4280314662/sizes/l/ )
I took this photo during summer. I was driving my brother up to meaford and I saw these huge windmills. We didn't have time to stop so I just remembered the location where we saw them and on the way back home we stopped the car and photography ensued. So why is this my favorite shot? It's simply composed and the colors to me are very pleasing, contrasty and saturated. Oh and did I meantion they're HUGE?! Look at the turbine in the back, it's at the tree line. Now look at the trees!
Anyways, I wanted to say that sometimes you see a photo just waiting to happen but you can't take the photo, it pays to try come back another time and take it. It's not going to be the same photo because the earth never waits for anyone but it doesn't mean you should forget about it. In this case, I think coming back to the spot worked out better because the sun wasn't as intense, so that let my camera could capture the full range of colors and not just a bunch of flaring.
And there we have it, my first post. Keep posted for more of these on a random basis! (ok well I'll try for once a week)
