When it comes to photography, people seem to be split into different groups:
First, there are the people who have a compact ‘point a shoot’ camera. They slip it into a purse or pocket, pull it out and snap away without much thought. They facebook their photos, holding the camera out at arms length so they can take pics of themselves and a mate, compete with red-eye. They often swap to an iPhone.
Then there are the geeks. I, of course, am one. They (I) have blogs, flickr accounts, websites and heaps of gear. The extremists collect vintage camera gear and write long essays on the merits of one film type over another. They are often pale from lack of sunlight. Some are prolific in their output, others talk a lot about imaging but their cameras languish for weeks in between the click of the shutter. They will bore you to distraction with long dissertations on one of a gazillion imaging related topics, hence they are frequently male and single ;-P
In between are those who have a good camera, but don’t yet know how to use it as well as they would like.
On Thursday I spent a couple of hours with a good buddy from my old work days. Kylie’s boyfriend has a DSLR (good camera for those of you who are in the ‘point and shoot’ category above) and she expressed an interest in learning a bit about photography. But as those of us with spouses and partners know, it is rarely a wise idea to seek advice and instruction from ones significant other. So I agreed to give her some pointers. The images in this post are my efforts from that session.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that some simple summaries would be a useful them to explore on the blog. So I decided to have a go at it. I’m going to structure it into a few topics, and keep it brief. If you want to know how many seconds you should agitate your Kodak Tri-X 400 in the stopper if you want to push it two stops and boost contrast, this is not the guide for you. But if Depth of Field, f2.8 and ISO1600 are a mystery to you, this may be the right place to start!
The actual notes will start with the next in the series, but for now let me give you a brief rundown on the topics:
- Exposure
- Discipline and technique
- Vision & Inspiration
- Controlling Light
- Composition
- Software and Workflow
You could start anywhere in this list, and I am tempted to start with vision, but I think that a working knowledge of Exposure and some basic technical disciplines are going to help quench the thirst of starters for the knowledge they think they would prefer to get first.
So Kylie and the others who have asked me about this stuff, enjoy!