Education advice request.

A young family member is a budding photographer and the young lady has a very good eye for it. She has done a few photo portrait settings for some children and high school friends' Sr pics, and they turned out really well. She lives in an extremely rural area with very few local opportunities for much of anything.

 

Can anyone recommend some inexpensive (or free) online training or even some good books (do people still make books anymore)?

 

Thanks

Light Science and Magic. - Seems a must own book to bibliophobic me.

Strobist blog?

There seem tons of photo-edutainment channels on Youtube. The big problem: Will your relative like the clown in charge there and does the presented stuff fit her needs and budget?

• Irene Rudnyk should be good for inspiring BTS footage, not sure if she is really educating.
  
• Mango Street?
  
• Joe Edelman? While I don't advocate binge watching each and every of his "togchat" episodes, hendid put good tutorials out and is also running a Facebook group, which I can't judge, since I didn't warm up with that medium.
  
• Adorama TV's gems. Gavin Howey (spelling?)
  
• Slanted Lens?
  
• Tony & Chelsea Northrup? They even wrote a (really best selling?) affordable book with embeded video links and updates "stunning digital photography". I don't own it. While they might not be ground breaking photographers on their own, they seem to take teaching, reviewing and preparing good(!) shopping advice quite seriously.
  
• Karl Taylor? He is surely capable, just maybe two sizes too big for a teenage beginner?
  
• Michael Sasser? While maybe not great, he might be able to point out some mistakes to avoid and nudge towards post processing efficiency.
  
• I'd also recommend watching tutorials about camera & especially software of choice.
  

IDK what your goals are.

I recommend keeping things most of all fun and also balanced. If 3rd Yongnuo & 2nd light stand are on the '22 Xmas wishlist, shooting what is at hand and keeping education free might make sense.

Borrowing books from the film age can't harm.

But most learning seems trial and error and knowing just enough to understand the mistakes one made. One has to take the time to practise whatever watched about lights, modifiers and reflectors.

IDK about online communities, beyond this one here.

Light Science and Magic. - Seems a must own book to bibliophobic me.

Strobist blog?

There seem tons of photo-edutainment channels on Youtube. The big problem: Will your relative like the clown in charge there and does the presented stuff fit her needs and budget?

• Irene Rudnyk should be good for inspiring BTS footage, not sure if she is really educating.
  
• Mango Street?
  
• Joe Edelman? While I don't advocate binge watching each and every of his "togchat" episodes, hendid put good tutorials out and is also running a Facebook group, which I can't judge, since I didn't warm up with that medium.
  
• Adorama TV's gems. Gavin Howey (spelling?)
  
• Slanted Lens?
  
• Tony & Chelsea Northrup? They even wrote a (really best selling?) affordable book with embeded video links and updates "stunning digital photography". I don't own it. While they might not be ground breaking photographers on their own, they seem to take teaching, reviewing and preparing good(!) shopping advice quite seriously.
  
• Karl Taylor? He is surely capable, just maybe two sizes too big for a teenage beginner?
  
• Michael Sasser? While maybe not great, he might be able to point out some mistakes to avoid and nudge towards post processing efficiency.
  
• I'd also recommend watching tutorials about camera & especially software of choice.
  

IDK what your goals are.

I recommend keeping things most of all fun and also balanced. If 3rd Yongnuo & 2nd light stand are on the '22 Xmas wishlist, shooting what is at hand and keeping education free might make sense.

Borrowing books from the film age can't harm.

But most learning seems trial and error and knowing just enough to understand the mistakes one made. One has to take the time to practise whatever watched about lights, modifiers and reflectors.

IDK about online communities, beyond this one here.

 

 

So far most of the stuff of hers I've seen was outside natural lighting portraits and nature. Honestly have no idea what her intended direction is. Kinda' feel like she is trying to expand her basic knowledge and move from there.

Big question: What additional knowledge might be needed? 3 video topics come to my mind

1. Using reflectors
   
2. Fill flash
   
3. Place your subject into shadow and have it lit by reflected light during high noon
   

Might inspiration be already more important?

 

Are you close enough to know what she is struggling with, if at all?

I don't really have any specific suggestions for online resources, but I've seen enough of Jochen's posts, in the past, to say that his suggestions are more than likely pretty good.

 

I AM a big proponent of the book, Light Science and Magic, but it may be a bit too deep for a novice - I dunno. It could be a useful reference if she tries to understand how the light sources "work," but again, I dunno. Fwiw I've spent my entire adult work life in photography, largely high-volume portrait work, although I eventually moved primarily into the technical side. Regarding the book, one of my brothers recently (meaning the past 15 or 20 years) started getting involved in landscape photography. As a side interest to his normal job. (He's had prints for sale in 3 or 4 different galleries, continuously in one for over a dozen years.) Anyway, I thought he could learn something from the book, but... he just doesn't seem to get it. So anyway, I'm not sure it's a book for everyone.

 

What I would personally suggest, for someone who intends to be serious about portrait work, is to learn to select good shooting locations. The stronger light should preferably be lighting the frontal part of the subject's face, and I personally prefer the background to be darker. There could be all sorts of variations on this, but the point is to get a "feel" for the light. And fwiw, the human eye tends to minimize the difference in light - what looks like only a slight difference to a person makes a much larger difference in a photo.

 

Once they have picked a location, I'd recommend to manually set both a "custom white balance" (see the camera manual) and exposure (a combination of ISO speed, shutter speed, and aperture; these are all in the camera manual).

 

Then finally, preferably, mount the camera on a tripod and use a remote release. This allows the photographer to interact with the subject, which to me is one of the key things in portrait work. This will entail a great deal of reframing the camera and perhaps resetting focus, depending on how you work. And yes, this IS a lot of work, going back and forth from viewfinder to subject. It's helpful to have the subject "nailed" in place, perhaps sitting on a bench, or perhaps on a log, or leaning over a fence, or that sort of thing. But this is about the only way to have serious interaction with the subject, to manipulate expressions and "posing," etc. (Unless you have an assistant operating the camera, framing per your direction, and keeping focus.)

 

The things I am suggesting definitely take work - much more difficult than just following someone around, with one's eye glued to the viewfinder. But it's a way more efficient way of getting good quality portraits. You set it up and get it to happen as opposed to waiting for "lucky" shots. If you're shooting only adults a handheld camera may be more or less ok, but you do interrupt the interaction and "raport" when your eye is in the viewfinder.

 

Practice and practice is the key. The ideal situation is to have someone with experience coaching you, but lacking this one has to find their own way.

 

I suspect that your family member shooter will not pay much attention to this - hardly anyone does. The only thing that seems to really convince people is when they see you breeze right through something that they have struggled with. Up until that time they tend to attribute another's success to having "better subjects," and that sort of thing. So I don't generally bother trying to explain over the internet - it's mostly a waste of time.

 

If you want a little background on my views, here's an older thread where Fred G (aka Norma Desmond) and I discuss "teaching" someone how to shoot portraits. Fred thinks that it is possible to "teach" such a skill through text and images. And if someone doesn't "learn" in this situation that it is a failure of the student, not of the teacher. Whereas I see the "text and images" method as inadequate, where a "failure of the student" is a result of an inadequate teaching method. Anyway, although I have taught a handful of people certain "techniques," I see these as a near impossible task without in-person hands-on demonstration. Partially because the "student" likely won't make the full commitment necessary unless they believe in it. And a half-hearted attempt doesn't generally work. The link is beow...

 

 

Film revival?

 

Best of luck to your budding portrait shooter.

Great suggestions above. There's no lack of excellent resources available, either physical or online.

I'm not familiar with the US school system but if the young lady has taken friends' Sr. photos, I'm guessing her age at about 17-18. Correct me if I'm wrong! So she's probably past the stage of online courses designed specifically for (younger) teenagers and is ready for 'adult' courses/books. That's not to say that shouldn't be fun while learning!

 

Living in a rural area, her learning is going to be pretty much self-directed in the short term. IMHO, there are a couple of different learning areas of education that she - at some stage of her development - might be interested in:

 

- general (creative) photography skills such as composition, framing, use of color, light, contrast, etc

- digital photography skills like shooting modes, semi-automatic and manual exposures

- post-processing skills (cropping, enhancement)

- working (interacting) with people

 

A free online course that I can recommend is the MoMA's

course (provided through Coursera). Domestika.org also has some short online courses that are not too expensive. The same goes for Udemy.com. Photography.tutsplus.com has free short tutorials on a range of topics. Including portrait photos.

 

As far as books go, I learned a lot from Michael Freeman's books, especially his bestselling 'The Photographer's Eye - Composition and Design for better Digital Photos' and 'The Photographer's Mind - Creative Thinking for better Digital Photos.' Both are now pretty old (2007 and 2011) but if she can pick up a second-hand (or Kindle) copy, still worth reading.

Books and on-line are useful learning aids: note that any People Photography is an interactive task. You're struggling to identify and articulate what her goals are. I reckon she'd benefit interacting here.

 

WW

There's no substitute for looking at a large number of images, online, books, magazines and anywhere you can find them. Cover a wide timeframe. Study the old film work by people like Karsh and George Hurrell. Google "famous portrait photographers" and see what appeals. It's easier to answer the question when somebody says, "Oh, how do I do it like that?"

Practice , Practice ,Practice.

She must first learn to fully utilize and understand her camera.

There are probably many on-line "courses" available to this end.

Learn to trust her own judgement when taking pictures.

Read whatever is available to her on photography.

 

Do not let her near post-processing (aka Photoshop) until she can consistently make acceptable pictures , I know that this suggestion will not go down well with many here , but it is probably inevitable.

It is like learning to shoot , master "iron" sights before moving on to telescopic sights.

I know , I know.

:).

It's for this reason I'm considering sending her some of my old SLR books, even though the media has changed the emphasis is the same with regard to making the picture in the camera rather than an artistic rendering in photoshop. I was just concerned it could be confusing. Lighting, DOF, the photo basics should still be the same.