I've started to shoot with a Canon Rebel T7, and I've started doing editing in Darktable in Linux Mint. I suppose this picture is my first foray into real photography. To get this work into fighting shape, I first shot RAW (a format I didn't know about three days ago) and then I had to figure out what the base curve my camera would be inclined to generate would be (a concept I didn't know about three days ago), and then I adjusted the white exposure and black exposure separately until I had a fairly lifelike photo where all the texture of the clouds, water, and on the boat, all stood out.
Mostly I'm just frustrated because for two decades, the discoveries of all these things, plus more concepts like the whole exposure triangle, have been kept from me by my phone. And now that I know them, and can use them to shoot good pictures, my artwork will only improve from here.
I've learned a lot and I continue to grow as an artist.
Thanks for seeing my work!
I'm glad I have much more power over what I'm creating now. While my phone is neat, it caps at twice zoom. Yet the telephoto lens I've got with my DSLR has much, much more range, it requires the steadiest of hands, plus a resting place, plus haze removal sometimes, just to get an image together. It is powerful, but very specific.