Beginner

[ansley_gammage]

<p>I've always loved photography, and I realized recently I'm much better than I ever knew. I've always enjoyed it, but didn't realize the talent until others verbalized their ideas. How did each of you challenge yourselves to grow as photographers? I only have VERY basic camera knowledge. What should be practiced? What are realistic goals? My fiance would say read a book about it first, but I learn better by experiencing than reading. I would love to eventually do family portraits, senior photos, and weddings for people. If you are in that profession I would LOVE to hear from you with challenges you face. </p>

<p>Any help would be appreciated. </p>

[SCL]

<p>Learning by doing is great for many things, but if you are serious, you need to learn the fundamentals and those basic concepts need to be read and remembered. To get you started: ISO is the sensitivity of the medium (film or digital sensor) to light. Shutter speed is the measure of time the medium is exposed to light, and is measured in fractions of seconds under normal conditions. The aperture or diaphragm controls the light entering the photographic system before the shutter opens and closes, is is measured in f/stops with each f/stop doubling or halving the previous one. Exposure is the result of interactions of all three. Now get a good book and learn the interrelationships and you're good for life.</p>

[yockenwaithe]

<p>I'm still just a serious amateur, but I can explain the experience a bit<br>

I taught myself [as shown by the fact that my pictures aren't as good as someone who's taken classes], and I can say if you really are passionate about it, you'll learn quickly. It's sort of like art- if you can accept and learn from your mistakes you'll have a fun time seeing yourself progress. I know because I still have a great time even though my pictures aren't the greatest, but I look at my growth and actually feel pride in my pictures. I can feel confident that my picture taking abilities will improve in the future<br>

The biggest challenge for me was getting the correct exposure, which Stephen gave you the basics of. It takes a bit to learn how to make the ISO, f stop, and shutter speed work in tandem to get correct exposure, though when you do finally grasp it it feels great. This is the most important thing, because poor exposure can be difficult to fix [in my limited experience].<br>

If you're looking for some good pointers on your pictures, you can post something to the critique forum and someone might respond to it [i got a response once on a photo I posted and it put my whole idea of macro shots into perspective]. Also this site is pretty good for technical questions and just advice in general</p>

[DavidTriplett]

<p>Ansley, I want to echo the advice to get some book knowledge on which to base your experiments. You need to understand the basics of the "exposure triangle" in order to have your experiments be useful. Just from my own point of view, it is a more effective learning experience if you minimize the variables. If your camera has an "auto ISO" setting, in Aperture Priority mode it can choose to vary the ISO along with shutter speed for any given exposure condition. Fixing the ISO at a given setting will remove this variable. Your images will range more in overall exposure, to the degree that shutter speed is unable to fully adjust for any given aperture setting. But, since this is a learning exercise, that will be good, as you will be able to go back, examine the EXIF data, and readily determine why an image appears over- or under-exposed, in or out of the field of focus. If your subject is poorly lit, you will be free to change the ISO to a setting other than 100 to put it in range of your other controls. The intent, again, is to keep things in a place where you can easily evaluate each image and the impact your settings have on the results.<br>

My suggestion for an exercise, which you can vary as you wish:<br />1. Set camera on Aperture Priority.<br />2. Set Auto ISO to "off".<br />3. Set ISO to 100.<br />4. Set auto focus to "single point focus".<br />5. Set light meter to "matrix" or equivalent.<br />6. Focusing each frame on the same point, and staying at the same focal length, make a series of images, progressing through the range of aperture settings.<br />7. Change ISO to an alternate setting, such as 200, or 400.<br />8. Repeat #6.<br />9. Change focal length, then repeat #6.<br />10. Change position, particularly for differing focal lengths, re-frame, and repeat #6-#9.<br>

The goal here is for you to see the relationships between ISO, depth of field, and shutter speed for any given set of exposure conditions. This also will allow you to see how focal length impacts perceived depth of field. Assuming you have an 18-135mm zoom lens, or similar, and an APS-C body, I recommend starting at 35mm as a baseline (this is equivalent to a 56mm prime lens), and then working through the process at 18mm, 70mm, and 135mm. These four focal lengths will give you a useful cross section of your lens/camera performance. ISO progression might be in full EV (exposure value) steps, such as 100, 200, 400, and 800 ISO. Remember to maintain the same focus point and lighting in each series in order to see the impacts of your settings most clearly. When you can obtain predictable results for a given setting, variable, and lighting condition, then you are ready to move on to the next concept. Have fun.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>I'm a pretty serious amateur, so no professional opinion here. To be brutally honest, one of the key ways I always have kept myself learning, experimenting, reading, studying and trying again is by knowing that I'm nowhere near as good as I'd want to be. I've got some people giving me honest, serious (and hence at times harsh!) feedback, but I'm still worse myself. Sure, some stuff ends up quite well, and I'm making some progress, but there is still a long way to go. And there will always remain a long way to go. There is no end to the learning curve.</p>

<p>I think your fiance is right. You cannot learn everything by experience (in the same way you cannot learn everything from a book). The stuff David described is the point to get started - a great book that explains the same at a bit more length, with plenty practical examples, is Bryan Peterson - <em>Understanding Exposure</em>. Read it, and then practise. A lot. Advantage of a book is having a point of reference, which you do not (yet!) have from experience. Alternatively, take a beginner's course that covers these basics which have real people working with you and giving you feedback and directions. Learning to expose is the technical side of making good images and that's probably where you should start. But there is a second side, the creative process - and that's at least as important (if not much more).<br>

Getting an idea for how compositions work, how elements in a composition work - the creative side of making an image work for your viewers - it is (in my view) the more critical part, and more difficult to learn. There are good books on the subject, but in this area it's also very important to look to the work of other photographers, analyse, trying to grasp why their images work, what makes them work. Many belief this is about "having an eye for photos" (talent); I don't think it suffices -it helps but seriously good stuff comes from people who studied their craft, and worked hard to become good. Being self-complacent is the worst thing here - a critical attitude on how you can do better will push you further. Ideally, find people willing to mentor, give honest and frank feedback, and grow a thick skin when people point out you're not half as good as you might hope.</p>

<p>Realistic goals: make one seriously outstanding image with which you are really content, and share with a critical knowledgeable audience. Take their feedback - especially the negatives - as lessons, and look back for yourself. Go out again, and improve on that image. And repeat.</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<p><strong>Practise</strong>.</p>

<p>In one word, that's how you do it. :-)</p>

<p>But Wouter is right - take lots of photos and look at lots of photos. You'll eventually understand what makes a good photo. It's easy to like someone else's work but when it comes to taking your own photos, it's a bit trickier. So just understand that you will need time to improve.</p>

<p>But you're blessed. The tools that would have cost thousands of dollars a generation ago are now available for mere hundreds. So equipment is no longer a limitation, whether film or digital (but I strongly recommend digital for beginners).</p>

<p>Here's an example of how to get field experience: let's say you know someone who has a music recital. So you ask them if you can shoot that concert. You take along your camera (which hopefully will have a silent shutter, even though that isn't always necessary, especially in amateur recitals), find out where you can position yourself, and shoot. Even if you photos are poor, that's not relevant, because you've just got some real experience. Rinse, repeat.</p>

<p>My first wedding did not go well, but it didn't matter because I did it for free. A friend of mine was getting married and I asked him, for my own curiosity, how much he was paying the photographer. He said that he didn't want one. But he did let me use his wedding for practice, and he understood that weddings were not my background. I made huge mistakes but I learned a lot as well. I don't do a lot of weddings but the ones I did after that were super good - according to the couples, anyway. But one can always improve.</p>

<p>I don't work very much ATM, but I keep myself in practise by always looking out for photo opportunities on the street. If I see something interesting, I'll shoot it with my iPhone and put it up on Flickr under Creative Commons, so anyone can use that photo for no fee. Commissions bring you money but the CC licence on Flickr is so much fun - you never know where your photos will turn up.</p>

<p>Most of us here will be happy to offer critiques if you like, as long as we have the time. We're happy to offer as much advice as we humanly can online. But ultimately, rely on yourself - that's the goal.</p>

<p>There's nothing wrong with a beginner's course, either. But as for formal study, you can safely bypass that. You could be improving your photography (and working and travelling) instead. Photography schools have always been redundant. But these days, even film schools are almost redundant, so if film schools are becoming less useful, you can imagine how useless photography degrees are. You may as well get a degree in scrapbooking.</p>

[colin carron]

<p>To me the process of learning photography, like any craft, is to : take lots of photos, look critically at those photos, decide how they could be improved, work out (often using the manual but not always) how that improvement can be made, take lots more photos.....</p>

[EdStone]

<p>1. Follow the advice above.<br>

2. 365<br>

Take a picture every day for a year (several different exposures and angles). It doesn't matter what it is but put some thought into it. (I'm still working on items around the house.) Remember that regardless of what you are photographing your subject is light (and the shadows give the photo the depth). Review them for not only what you did right but how they could be improved. Every 3 or 4 months go back an review from the beginning. What have you improved on? What is still a problem?<br>

3. Get decent photo editing software. There are some good free ones out there, but IMHO, I would suggest the latest version of PhotoShop Elements to begin with.<br>

4. Enjoy!!</p>

<p> </p>

[yockenwaithe]

<p>If you're looking for good photo editing software, GIMP is also pretty amazing. You can get loads of free plugins to make it as good as, if not better than PhotoShop [in my opinion if course, some like photoshop better]. That's what I use, being the dirt poor person I am</p>

[david_gardner6]

<p>Photography is composed of two things: composition and exposure.<br>

If one has a natural eye for composition, you have what I think is the hardest park done. You know how to frame a shot that is interesting, compelling, artistic. While this can be learned, it's the harder part to learn. <br>

What it sounds like you need, then, is a grounding in the "science" of photography, exposure, what affects it, and how to manipulate the factors that affect it. For my money, these are the far easier skills to acquire...which is not to say that acquiring them will be easy, mind you. If will require a lot of study and practice. But I know many photographers who have a deep understanding of exposure, yet cannot frame a satisfying shot to save their souls. </p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Other than one class in college and a few workshops here and there over the years, I am largely self taught. While learning from a book might not be your preference, I do strongly recommend at least browing through a few basic photography books. We sometimes get quetions here like "what's an f-stop" and people are glad to answer those. But it's better to get some basic knowledge and then come back with more specific questions about things you can't figure out on your own.<br /><br />I also recommend reading the photography magazines like Popular Photography and Shutterbug. They're not what they used to be, but there's a lot you can pick up. Obviously there's all sorts of material on the web. If you want to learn about flash photography, for example, <a href="http://www.strobist.com">www.strobist.com</a> would be required reading. If you prefer visual learning, YouTube has lots of tutorial videos, as do many of the equipment manufacturers' websites. <br /><br />You are correct that experience is ultimately the best way to learn. I've always read everyting I can about photography but my biggest fault is that sometimes I'm an armchair photographer. You have to go out and actually try the things you've read about (or watched in a video).</p>

[AJG]

<p>Lots of good advice here, but one thing not mentioned so far is the business aspect of things. If you think you want to pursue photography professionally, you will be running a business, like it or not. Some classes in business and accounting would be a useful supplement to the photographic knowledge you will also need.</p>

[maris_rusis]

<p>Andrew Gillis is right. Professional picture-making is a business and a one year course in small business administration would be an ideal start. Before I retired from from the profession I'd estimate camera-work took up about 5% of my time. The rest was chasing new work, keeping old customers, getting paid, pursuing debtors and slow payers, managing expenses, paying taxes, keeping records, etc, etc.<br>

The actual standard of camera-work required emphasised reliability over creativity. Clear pictures, sharply focussed, well lit, and delivered on time is where the challenge is. This takes about a week to learn and constant perserverence to maintain.</p>