Eating Raoul

In the last 2 days 3 different people have said that they are interested in learning more about photography, with the advent of cheaper and higher quality digital SLR’s it looks like photography has gained a new following. So if I was starting again from scratch how would I do it?

  1. Buy the best camera you can afford, make sure it can be used in manual mode, where you do all the hard work. Buy Nikon or Canon, these are the biggest makes and there are lots of second hand lenses out there, this will keep the cost of expansion of your kit down. I use Nikon as a lot of the old manual lenses work on the new bodies, it keeps my costs down.
  2. Do a course, a collage class or night school, with real people. This is instead of an internet course, because working with other people you will learn from their mistakes as well as your own and your teacher will give you lots of feed back. You only need a short course to learn the very basics of camera handling as most of photography is down to personal taste.
  3. Read some photo mags, lots of information about kit, photographers and technique.
  4. Take photos, take lots and lots and lots of photos, if its digital it’s not costing you anything but time and it’s the best way to learn. Copy photos you like, its not cheating as you will never copy them exactly but by trying you will stretch your abilities. Set your self challenges, next week all the pictures on the blog come from off my patio, you try to take 5 different shots in the space of ¼ of a tennis court.
  5. Do it for your self, take photos you like, sod the rest, if others like some of them, fine, if not, so what.

Today’s picture is one of those; I think that the slightly toned, high contrast black and white lifts this picture. It’s of the village of Hollinsclough near Chrome hill.




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Now playing: THE AUTOMATIC - Raoul
via FoxyTunes

Comments

I want to super-impose myself into the far corner of that picture. It looks nice there.
Anonymous said…
Thanks!

I already took a course in photography (it was auniversity course at the royal academy of arts in the Hague), but the teacher just told us to try things out for ourself and wouldn't explain anything really. He just kept saying we were taking ordinary photos - well if you want us to take better pictures you'd better teach us something.

Anyway.. I'll take lots of pictures once I get my new camera. Hopefully that should work. The main thing I still can't establish is to focus on one object and have everything else be completely out of focus (especially having the background hazy is pretty difficult).

By the way, this picture you posted.. I was wondering if those dark edges at the top are just the way the sky was or is that from a filter?
Steph said…
I know absolutely nothing about photography, but I love this picture because it's so textured! I love how the tree contrasts with the smooth (metal?) phone booth.
Thanks for asking if I want to input my photography thoughts.You have done a fab. job, so what I'm going to do soon is a post with the link straight back here to this post. Honestly I'd waffle and I'm self taught, so I'm all blag, luck and gut instinct.

Excellent choice of pic to illustrate the post.

Prepare for an onslaught of wannabe photographers. You will be asked to pass critique, I do.
Rob said…
Good information here. I got the link form Babooska. I took many SLR courses in the mid 1980's. Now I am back into digital SLR photography after being frustrated with my other digital point and shoot cams.

Excellent photo here! Looks like an infrared filter was used to lighten the greens. I am becoming more interested in B&W photography now. Troubel is I keep challenging myslef with new ideas before I master what I am currently trying to learn.

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