Always ready
Whether at home or on his travels, Eric Beaulieu never misses a chance to hone his photography skills
I’m an IT consultant, and photography is a relatively new passion for me. It all started six years ago, when I attended a photo course at a local community centre. The teacher was so passionate, and the course so interesting, that my interest in photography grew very quickly.
At that time I just had a Pentax compact camera. I quickly realised how much this limited my photography, restricting what I could do, and so a month after starting the course I bought a Nikon D80.
Life through a lens
As I learned more about photography, I started to look at the world in a different way. Everywhere I go, whether it’s on holiday overseas or just for a walk in my home city of Quebec, [1] [2], I’m always looking for an interesting shot.
Travel is a big passion for me, and I especially like to go to New York City, which is around an eight-hour journey from my home; there are so many amazing places, and such a variety of people and cultures, in one spot [3].
When possible, I’ll return to a place that I’ve previously visited, but I’ll go at a different time of the day to catch the right light for the perfect picture. My favourite times of day for taking
When possible, I’ll return to a place that I’ve previously visited, but I’ll go at a different time of day to catch the right light
pictures, not surprisingly, are the golden hours around sunrise and sunset.
I also love taking photos of kids because they are so unpredictable and expressive, and since my daughter was born in October 2012 I’ve probably taken more than 3,000 photos of her! Children don’t stay still for long, so you have to be patient with them, and quick on the shutter release – if I don’t want to miss anything during a shoot, I’ll use the Continuous shooting mode so my subject is always in focus. A shot of my nephew playing with a dog is one my favourite photos ever.
Life through a lens
Since I subscribed to N-Photo I’ve learned so many things about photography. These days I’m not afraid to shoot in Manual mode, and I’ve also come to appreciate the benefits of shooting in RAW, and of using a tripod and ND filters for long exposure shots. I love to try out new techniques such as HDR and night photography.
It’s great to have control of post-production, too. I recently started to use Nikon Capture NX2 for editing my RAW files – it’s so easy to adjust the exposure, the White Balance and saturation, and I like the Control Points feature, which enables me to make selective adjustments without having to use layer masks.
I’ve become so passionate about my photography that maybe one day I’ll switch career and take it up professionally. In the meantime I’ll practise and practise, and try to discover my own niche.