A lot of people ask how I got started in the area of photography, so here is my rundown.

During the year of 2010 my brothers’ and I needed to purchase a Christmas gift for my father. My father is an avid photographer dating back to the 70’s and he still keeps up to date with the digital age. Khari (the middle brother) said that my father wanted a camera. We all chipped in and purchased a Canon T2i and were extremely excited to present this new camera to our father. Unfortunately when my father opened his Christmas gift, he blatantly said that this was NOT the camera that he wanted. “The camera that I wanted is $5000”, he said to our surprise. So yes, we couldn’t get that camera for our father and now we needed to decide what to do with the camera.

… side note, remember when Christmas was fun and you didn’t have to pay for anything? You could just run downstairs in your pajamas at 5AM to see what Santa brought. No worries about paying off your Christmas gifts, just take, take, take and be happy!!!!…..

So back to the 2009 Christmas, all the gifts have been opened and the payments for my gifts have pretty much balanced out.

This basically means I spent $750 in gifts and received $750 in gifts. Not complaining, still very thankful for everything received…..but I wanted something else to open. Low and behold, there was a brand new camera ready to be opened and this brought back some joy into my 2010 Christmas:-) I truly did not know that by me opening this 2 pound box, I was also opening a number of opportunities.

With my new gift opened my father assisted me with some of the basics of photography. This includes bouncing the flash off the ceiling instead of direct on camera flash (he also gave me one of his old flashes), altering your ISO and the trade off that exists (grain), and the difference between the camera modes (Green Box, AV, TV). I can not thank my father enough for getting me started in the field of photography (whether by accident or not).

Fast forward to the current day, I do my best to consume as much information about photography as I truly feel I am a lifelong learner. I am a teacher at heart, as I love teaching others, but I am also an advocate for learning as much as possible. I look forward to the years to come as I evolve my style through the lens:-)

– Jabari

PS Below are some of my first shots in 2010 when I started playing around with the T2i. Captions are within the rollovers. Always curious about learning:-)