Introduction!

Welcome to the first blog entry from Elston Photography! 

The point of this blog will be to talk about photos, photo shoots, behind the scenes details, photography as a business, ask and/or answer questions, and anything else photography related.  I will have my first Behind the Scenes post up tomorrow!

Since this is my first post, I thought I should say a little about myself and give a small history of me and my involvement with photography.  (If you’re interested, keep reading.  If not, come back tomorrow!)

In the Fall of 2008 I was a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Southern California.  My friend and classmate Jerry told me he was going to take Fine Arts 210: Introduction to Digital Photography and that I should take it with him. I agreed that if we could both get in the same class I would be interested, since it sounded kind of fun. I'm pretty sure I told him that I needed some “backup” going in to a class of all these “art kids”.  When registration for Spring of ’09 came around we both were able to squeeze ourselves into the art-majors-get-first-dibs 12-person class that fit our schedule. A few weeks in, Jerry stopped coming and I was alone with all the “art kids”. I'm happy to say that I ended up staying, even though I was now deprived of my “backup”!  Before long, I was hooked.

I had actually bought a Canon Rebel XT (with kit lens) from Jerry before the class started.  Once a few friends found out I was in a photography class and had a “nice camera” (because it was a DSLR and not a point and shoot, haha) I was asked to shoot some head shots, a dance show, and even to be the second photographer at a friend’s wedding.  Since I was enjoying photography so much, and had a great paying year-round engineering internship, I decided to jump in to photography (at least in the gear sense) head first.  In April I bought a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L, in summer a Canon 5D Mark II, and toward the end of the year a Canon 85mm f/1.2L.

I shot fashion, swimwear, beauty, portraits, head shots, events, theater shows and dance shows for the next year and a half while I was at school.  I even started working with l.a. models doing “testing” with their “New Faces” division. After I graduated in 2010 with my Masters, I continued working on photography while employed as a full-time engineer.    Then, in May of this year, I was laid off from my engineering job when our program was canceled.  (This was an event that affected “me and 1,200 of my closest friends”). Currently, I am pursuing photography as much as I can while also looking for new employment.  That is a rather short summary of the last few years, but what matters to me is my drive for and love of photography remains and keeps growing as time goes on.  If I end up a full-time photographer or a full-time engineer is yet to be decided, but I will always be a photographer.  It took one of my role models, Russell James, 10 years to “make it”, so I'm sure it’s going to take me some time too.

Well there you have it! Come back tomorrow for a behind the scenes look at my recent promotional photo shoot for one of my favorite dance companies!