Last year in August, Andrea Bryant of Edina was outside with her then third-grader enjoying what their neighbors call a bus stop breakfast to celebrate the first day of school. “All the parents are there with cameras,” Bryant says. But that day, “the bus was earlier than expected and the kids took off running.”
Bryant was able to capture the moment with her Nikon D800. Photography is a hobby for Bryant. She began getting serious about taking photographs while living overseas. She says, “I had extra time and wanted to capture places we were going.” She also took some photography classes to help fine-tune her skills.Although Bryant has tried a couple of different cameras, she prefers her Nikon D800 because most of the settings are on the outside instead of being buried in the digital menus. Taking photographs in manual mode can require lots of changes in settings, and this particular camera makes that easier.
Bryant’s photo, titled The First Day of School, received citywide acclaim when it won a 2016 Images of Edina photo contest award in the education category. She hadn’t entered the contest before and wasn’t sure she’d taken enough photos around Edina to have something to submit. She selected this picture and submitted fairly early in the process. “I didn’t realize [the contest] was still going on when I won,” Bryant says, adding that she thinks she would enter the contest again.
For readers who’d like to get more serious about taking photos, Bryant recommends you “get to know your camera. Don’t be intimidated by the manual. Learn the terminology. Take a class. You’ll learn tips and tricks, and it’ll change how you take pictures.”
See the photo on the Edina Facebook page here.
