And so it begins...

First, a little intro. I'm Glenn. 29 years old. Filipino. Graphic Designer. Artist. Musician (Guitar Player/Singer). And more recently, Photographer. Which brings me to why started this blog.

It all started in college before my last year of school as a design student at UT-Arlington. I signed up for an intro to photography class, and with that, I needed a full manual 35mm slr camera. One day, after a lengthy conversation with my uncle, he handed me a camera bag. In it was a 35mm SLR Canon AE-1 Program, with 3 lenses (a Canon 50mm prime, a Tamron 80-200mm macro, and a 75-280mm Tokina). The camera needed some work to make it functional, but he said if I got it fixed, then I could have them, and so I did.

Fast forward 6 years to 2008, after spending a lot of money on film, I realized that I could save money in the long run by switching to a digital slr. I still love film and I wish it would stay (not likely, but one can hope). I would love to get back in the dark room and process film and prints the old way. There's just something about it. Romantic, nostalgic, intimate, and whatever other words I can't think of at the moment. Anyway, I ended up purchasing a Canon XSi which, at the time, was a new product from Canon with a 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS kit lens.

Funny thing that happens once you get a camera that's remotely nice is that your friends start to call wanting you to take photographs of them. Which is what happened to me. And I'm too nice to say no to a friend. After shooting a couple of engagement shoots. I was striving for more knowledge on lighting techniques and tips on how to take better photos. I then turned to my now roommate, Scott, whom I met though work. He's also a graphic designer. A damn good one at that too. He turned me on a lighting movement called Strobist. You guys can read about it more here... http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html.

A few flashes, light stands, umbrellas, remote triggers and I was on my way. Scott and I tried out a short lived photography business on the side. We called it Flip Turtle Photography. It was a bit more than what we bargained for, but we got some good shot out of it. That website is still up if you'd like to check it out... www.flipturtlephotography.com. It was just too much all at once, and with full time jobs, it was really difficult to run a business on the side. We jumped in the deep end and we almost drowned. So for now, I'm sticking to the shallow end until I get more comfortable. Which brings me to this blog.

I didn't want to spend the money on creating a website for my photography just yet, so I figure posting photos on blog would be a nice way to present myself to the public. One of my jobs as a graphic designer is to set up photo shoots all over the country for the magazine I work for. More on that later. On my search for photographers, I started noticing a trend. Almost all of the photographers I hire blog. So I figure, WHY NOT?

So here we go, in the coming days, I'll be posting up photos I've taken in the past, as well as the most recent photos I've taken. Explaining each one and how I approached it. If you like it, please comment. If you don't, please let me know why you don't and what I can do to make it better. And if you like it, and you are in the Dallas area and would like to set up an appointment to have photos taken, please contact me. Oh and I drive EVERYWHERE, so if you are within a day's drive, on a weekend, we can talk. =)

More to come, stay tuned, and thanks.

GZ