One year ago last October, I woke up one morning and decided to take up photography. It was a simple as that. My wife had an old Canon 350 D in the cupboard that was very lightly used, with three lenses. I had everything I needed to start.
I had no clue what I was doing. I took this image in our kitchen, my first one:
I did what everyone does of course- headed for You Tube and the internet. I found some really helpful videos about my specific camera, and quickly learnt from beginner sites that I needed to learn about the Exposure Triangle. Except lots of people said not to get too bothered by that, just shoot on auto mode for a while.
I quickly learned there were as many opinions about photography as there are photographers, and to trust my self to learn what I needed to at any given time.
I eventually gained a basic understanding about the Exposure Triangle, but theory and practice are two very different things! Time after time, no matter what I did, my photographs were dark. It was not until I discovered the free software PhotoScape X that I was able to brighten up my images in post editing.
Then one day I discovered this thing called Exposure Compensation (EC). It affects the brightness of the image. Using the Canon 350 D, though perfectly adequate to learn on, was challenging at times with its small live view. I could not always discern whether changes I made to EC were improving things. Of course, when it snowed I assumed I had to decrease the EC stops because the photo would automatically be bright, right? Wrong! Eventually I discovered how the camera makes all images 18% grey, so it will see snow and reduce the exposure accordingly to bring the snow to an 18% grey colour. Which makes it look blue. By increasing the EC stops you compensate for that, and the snow looks, well, white!
I bought a very good photography beginners book Stunning Digital Photography. It is the best selling photography book in the digital era, and it helped a lot. It is very comprehensive, backed up by video links and an online community What I know now is that I did not know what I did not know! It is only a year on that some things are making sense. However, it was a good guide to inform me of the priority learning areas.
Learning about light will be a lifelong exercise. I have learnt to notice where the light is falling, its impact on the scene, its direction, and intensity. I have learned to loathe being out in the mid-day summer sun, not just because I have always disliked the heat, but because of the challenges as a new photographer in managing the harshness of the bright sun.
As you might expect, there were You Tube teachers that I resonated with more than others, and I have acknowledged them in the ‘Guiding Lights’ section of my web site.
Web site you may ask? Are you not being somewhat presumptuous to have a photography web site as a hapless beginner? Well yes and no. What I explicitly intended to do was create a web site that other newbies might find helpful, a sort of “lets all make a hash of this together” kind of thing. So I deliberately posted my appalling mistakes,
and tried to explain how they had become that way, so I could learn, and others along with me. I can’t say the web site has been a success in terms of views, however for me it has been a great way to document this photographic journey and if it is just for me so be it ( but if you are reading this you must have found me so thank you!).
I also created a Facebook Page to accompany this web site. Through this I have gained much from seeing other photographers images, as well as hopefully having a few folk pop by to see mine!
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