My Mom used to say that nothing got done in December. Everyone is waiting for January 3d, Tuesday, for normal work routines to begin anew. In the meantime I am making good progress on learning about photography. Besides the video course I am taking on how to operate my own camera, I am also taking a course on photography in general.
These lessons are called “The Beginner Photographer’s Crash Course” and they are taught by Khara Plicanic. She’s a little goofy but in a good way. Her enthusiasm is demonstrable and enthusiasm when teaching is absolutely essential. It’s another course from CreativeLive.com (external link).
Photographers stress getting off the presets of your camera and learning to adjust the controls manually. Without getting into the details of shutter speed and ISO’s, one trick I’ve learned is to take two pictures of the same subject. Take one on “Auto” and one by yourself. Which do you like better? The one you adjusted all the settings on or the one the camera took on its own? How do you decide what to change if you liked the “Auto” better?
I never knew this before but every digital image file has what’s called “Metadata” (external link). This file information is part and parcel of an image’s file and contains everything known about the photograph when it was created. Even its location if your camera is GPS equipped. The aperture, the lens type, the film speed — all of this is part of an image when it was first taken. By looking at what the camera saw and what you saw, you can learn to adjust. Take a look at any photography magazine. All of them give exposure information about their images which you can learn by.
Whew! I am rambling about photography and this is a writing blog. I am struggling to decide how I should write about picture taking while still maintaining news and opinions on writing. Perhaps I should consider this Christmas week as a planning week and think the matter over. Besides, I have no writing projects going on until January. After all, nothing gets done in December.
Here’s a look at a photograph I took, along with some of its Metadata. Click on the image to see it full size:
