So Far So Good? My first three months as a hobby photographer.
I have now reached the three month mark since I took up photography and thought this was a good opportunity to reflect on the experience so far. It is certainly one of the most enjoyable and challenging things I have ever done.
The Canon 350 D was not entirely unfamiliar but I had not used it for many years, and not often before that. I had always used automatic mode. Therefore plunging straight into manual mode felt like a novice diver standing atop a cliff in Acapulco hoping the water at the bottom was deep enough. After a few metaphorical dives where I literally had no clue what aperture was, I looked for advice and of course found so much online it made my head swim. Most of it was encouraging and practical.
I quickly realised I needed to be specific in what I needed to learn. I devoured online resources, and was glad that some advice appeared to be generally consistent. I have distilled the top 5 things that were most useful in this graphic.
Deciding to mostly shoot in aperture or shutter mode was how I began to move from the frustration of not knowing what I was doing to at least feel I could produce something that was recognisably a photograph!
I then found a really good beginners book: Stunning Digital Photography (SDP) by Tony Northrup, and began working though the first few chapters. Through this I learned how important it was to think more about light and composition than camera settings, and the quality of the camera being of less importance. I began to feel less disdainful of the venerable Canon 350 D and began to take more responsibility for the shots than blaming the body or the lens. I think this is an essential place to get to at the start of learning photography.
Just going out, experimenting, and later reviewing the images using the data available is slowly helping me understand the camera settings and how that creates the resulting images. I wish I had paid more attention to Exposure Compensation from the beginning and still need to continually educate myself on that and experiment more with taking shots at different settings. I am beginning to understand aperture better, and now want to focus more on shutter speed. I am actively avoiding looking at White Balance!
People tell me I have a good eye and I hang on to that!
Creating the web site was a challenge, not just on the technical side, but also giving myself permission to do it and have the confidence to deliberately set it up as a learning site and not one to show off fabulous pics (there wouldn’t be much on it so far!) It will not attract large numbers of visitors but will be lovely for me to look at in years to come and see the photographic journey unfold.
During these next few months I am looking forward to the light changing, I have only shot in Fall and Winter so far and it has been a challenge with low light. I intend to continue to work through SDP and not go too fast- keep reviewing until I “get it” before moving on. I will shoot in RAW files now as they are better for post processing, and I will learn more about PhotoScape X. I have been very impressed with the free version and for now I have no need to spend money on Lightroom or Photoshop.
I quickly became engrossed with watching street photographers at work on You Tube and knew immediately this was a field I wanted to spend a lot of time in. I was extremely self-conscious on my first street shoot (more of this in future blog posts) and I need to work on getting closer to subjects, but have made a start and intend to really prioritize this during the year.
Through You Tube I have found numerous brilliant photographers who provide a breadth of both practical skills learning, and an exploration of the philosophical side of photography. I feel excited to be able to explore this more deeply. These “guiding lights” will feature on the web site on an ongoing basis, and I hope others will find them interesting too.
There are so many FB photography sites and I have joined many of them. I feel more confident now in asking for constructive criticism, beyond noticing the number of likes I get for a particular image (though I confess that is gratifying too on a good day!).
I set out to overcome nervousness about technology and I am glad that I am a little more confident- moving into a mirrorless camera this year will be another challenge. I wanted to have a creative outlet and photography is giving me this in spades.
And of course the best thing of all, I am steadily saving up for my first used mirrorless camera. It will be one suitable for a beginner, and I will have enough for one decent used lens.
Of everything I have gained from starting this hobby, perhaps the best thing of all is how it has literally changed how I see the world around me in any given moment. I am not exactly constantly composing imaginary photographs but the way I notice light, shapes, and objects has been transformed.
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