Yes, it's my own image, but here's the thing. It was #19 in the Art of 2013. Yes, me!
How about that? An image of mine seemed to appeal to the voters as a pretty decent artistic image.
I have been here since August of 2006; I showed up without a clue.
In case you don't believe me, here's my very first challenge entry.
It's small because I didn't even know how to resize at that point. Sad.......LOL!!!
I came here to learn........and I needed to learn everything. My camera, how to edit digital images, and mostly,
what I didn't even expect, how to actually be a photographer.
I learned how to be a photographer. Here. Essentially for free, because I learned from this comnmunity of many talents and giving personalities.
Oh sure, I paid my $25 for membership faithfully every year, but all that did was
enable me to have some storage space, enter more challenges, and have full access to the forums.
But the means to have become the photographer that I am has been the DPC community. There is a distinct
and valuable pool of resources here for the asking. I've had mentors, critics, cheerleaders, encouragement,
chastisement, teaching, cajoling, and all along the way I've been helped in so many ways and styles that I realize
now that the depth & breadth of knowledge I have acquired here is simply put, incredible. You people
are the ones who taught me everything I know. I have learned so many techniques, so much about how to really
"see" the world around me, how to tell a story, how to render the image as closely to my mind's eye vision of
what happened at the precise moment that I fell in love with yet another moment in my life. And this gift is never
more apparent to me than when I'm around other photographers, at galleries, or local camera club events. The knowledge
pool and the level of experience simply isn't there. I can't find what I do on any given day on DPC anywhere else.
I am a pretty damn good photographer.......and strictly for it's own sake and my expression. I went through the
wedding/sports/portrait/gallery/art show phase and found out that as well as being hard work requiring commitment
I wasn't willing to make as well as equipment requirements, I just don't want to shoot for
anything or anyone other than as a part of life that unfolds in front of me.
The one thing I find most amusing is the variation in what I can shoot. My tagline/signature at the bottom of my posts says,
"I do life photography!". I have people ask me all the time what I like to shoot best, or what my "genre" is, but honestly,
my hokey little signature says it all. I drag my camera with me everywhere, and I don't care if it's something like
a beautiful butterfly in a strange setting, a car on fire in a parking lot, the sun coming up over the railroad tracks,
a guy playing sax on the subway,or the mist coming off the ice through the bridge.......I just shoot the world around me.
    
It's mostly an attitude, a style, a sharing of my and others' worlds, offered in the most reverent manner in the hopes
that someone else might be enriched for just a minute. I have found myself welcomed into people's homes, offices,
kitchens, garages, attics......their secret spots that only they know. That little spot at the end of the fencerail on the top of
the ridge where the most beautiful sunsets live, the old oak tree in the hollow past the briar patch that is older than the four generations
that have lived there, the funny old car buried in the weeds, a new puppy, their daughter's pottery.....heck, all of my blue ribbons are ordinary
things that photographed well, and fit the challenge theme. That's another thing......being challenged keeps me constantly on the lookout for
"the moments", "the scene", those right place, right time, happenstances that make photography the delight that it is. Photography has become
real magic to me. It opens doors, hearts, and minds in ways I've not experienced through any other method.
Having spent a lot of time in the forums, gone to a dozen or so GTGs, bought and sold equipment, and truly enjoyed myself getting to know
quite a few of you who have been tremendous inspiration to me, I am just blown away by the gift that DPC has been to/for me. I'd like to think
I have friends all over the world now that should I stop by, they'd juggle their schedule, blow off a day's plans, and off we'd go on an adventure.
And I would get to see another part of this world through the eye of another person like me who can easily find beauty wherever they are, and
that they'd share their corner of the world with me.
So, you say, "And what, Jeb, has sparked this latest Pro-DPC blather?". One of the people who I would have to say has been a tremendous inspiration
and a constant source of true enjoyment simply by admiring his portfolio is Paul. If you look at his comment/award on my Art of 2013 you'll see that
I have been selected for special notice by him. And that, my friends, is what DPC is all about for me, and why I will be here for as long as forever
is for me and/or DPC. For a guy who thought he had *ZERO* artistic sense or ability to have progressed to a point where an image that
he shot that was sheer love of life through the lens, would be selected by another photographer whom I admire for this award is one of the most deeply
appreciated moments of my life. I was happy with the shot; I felt that it would do reasonably well, didn't really care, though, but to have it hit Top 20, and
make the impression on Paul that it did is just fantastic.
Thanks, people!
Truly...
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