Welcome

Hello, my name is Devin, but you already know that. I wanted to take some time to expand upon my About Me, because, well there's so much to tell! It's hard to know where even to start, but I figured I'd open up about my journey into Photography.

Often when I meet people, whether it's clients or peers in the photography/creative industry, the 1st thing they ask is "how did you get into photography?" or, "when did you start shooting?".

Well, here goes nothing, when I was 18 years-old, I saved up all of my money and bought my very first camera from the now defunct Circuit City. It was a Nikon D60 with the traditional 24-70mm standard lens. I think you can find these cameras for less than $100 dollars now, but back then, for the camera, lens, & memory card, I think I spent nearly $1000. It was such a big deal back then, I actually still have that camera, although I couldn't tell you the last time that I used it. Truthfully, phone cameras were pretty bad back then, so an actual camera was kind of a big deal. I took photos with this camera for about 10 years. Truth be told, many of those years I shot with this camera in automatic for longer than I care to admit. It wasn't until I actually started to take photography seriously that I actually learned anything about the camera settings, or what any of the buttons actually did.

Side note, anytime a younger photographer, or person interested in starting photography asks me for advice on learning photography, I always recommend shooting in the Automatic mode. This keeps them from getting discouraged & the photos should come out reasonably well. Once they start to get an eye for what they're shooting then they'll want to master the controls of the camera.

Fast Forward some years later & I found myself studying English Literature and as a Staff Journalist writing for The Paisano at The University of Texas at San Antonio. I could not say enough complimentary things about UTSA, or my time there. While at UTSA I learned so much, met so many incredible people & I miss all of the great conversations with all of my wonderful professors. So, while writing for The Paisano, I found that most people mainly wanted to write articles, but did not care to take photos for the articles. So, reluctantly I offered to take photos for my peers articles, even though, at the time my mind was made up that I was only there to write.

Well, after the first article that I took photos for, I found that not only did I have a great time, I found that I was actually pretty good at taking photos. After that shoot, I took on less articles as a writer and I volunteered for as many articles that needed a photographer as I could.

To say joining the staff at The Paisano was a watershed moment in my creative life is an understatement. I'm so thankful for Dr. Abdo for all of her encouragement & dedication to The Paisano. Professors like that change lives and I'm forever grateful for her influence in my life.

Truthfully, this post hardly scratches the surface in my photography journey, but it's a start. Stay tuned for future posts!