It's amazing to me how much I've learned about photography in the past year, since I started taking photos more regularly. Take this photo as an example - the ISO was unnecessarily set to 200, probably because I didn't yet know what ISO was so I didn't to change it. I was using a camera I borrowed from school and I'm guessing someone before me set the ISO to 200. Of course, now when I look at this photo at full resolution, it's immediately obviously to me that there's a whole lot of noise and I would never now shoot a still scene in full sunlight with such high ISO.

Of course, ISO isn't the only thing I've learned about in the past year, but don't worry, I won't bore you with a list. It's just... well, amazing to me that I've learned as much as I have just by keeping this web page, getting out and shooting as many pictures as I can, reading about photography online and in books, and maybe most importantly, watching what all of you are posting to your photoblogs. Many of the photoblogs on my links page are ones I've been following for at least a year, and they have never ceased to provide inspiration to me.

Finally, while I'm gushing about all that I've learned in the past year, I have to say that I've finally begun to start to feel comfortable with Photoshop. And I truly mean that I have only begun to feel comfortable. Comfortable means that I no longer fear layers the way I fear calculus. It does not mean that I have yet learned all there is to know, or even really scratched the surface. But, thanks to a recent lesson from ViSuaLLyMiNDeD, I've recently learned how to duplicate a layer, change it to overlay, and adjust the opacity, as I did in this photo here. I'm curious to know what you think. Below is the original photo for comparison. I think I've lost too much detail in the upper half of the photo, in the tree trunk and leaves... I like the effect on the car though.

(By the way, I know nothing about cars. Is this a Cadillac?)