By last Thursday, progress was looking pretty abysmal, I'd played around with the camera a bit, watched a few online tutorials - I understood the basics of the camera I was working with. I was really having a hard time getting motivated because, well, I just wasn't good at photography. One of the hardest parts of getting good, or even 'not bad' at something is being bad at it. That 90 degree incline you have to climb before you see any results. A huge quantity of people will try something they might like and, without giving themselves an opportunity to get a glimpse of what not sucking at it is like, they'll dismiss it before they get any momentum. Well get those wheels rolling, kid!
This past weekend gave me a good opportunity to get caught up on all my skills and know-how. The first week was supposed to be about learning, but I also wanted to be able to put my progress into practice; a one week summary of what I'd experienced so far. I don't know where it's going, but good news: it is going. I went to the local Muttart Conservatory here in Edmonton, took a few hundred shots, came back home, and I liked these photos I took. I'm actually excited to go back out and take more pictures. That's what it's all about, getting to the point where you like what you're doing.
So, Sunday: I finally had a chance in the few days prior to spend some time poking around the internet, watching tutorials, reading articles, looking at some incredible work other people have done. I played around with my camera, taking pictures around the house, seeing what worked, what didn't. I wanted to go out and capture something really interesting at this point. Enter the Muttart Conservatory, a big ol' garden with lots of colour, lots of interesting subjects. Just the thing! By the time I had gotten there, the clouds had cleared up a bit, and some sun was coming through. It was about 1:30 PM which in Canada time means I have mayyybe three hours of decent sunlight left. Perfect to play with some awesome side lighting effects. I was feeling a little giddy.
I spent the next two hours scrambling around like cats on a laser (again with the cats!) following this light around, looking for the most interesting subjects I could spot. Lying on the ground, climbing on benches in this new playground of composition, colour, and lighting that I wasn't able to see a week ago. I also had a new toy - a 100mm macro lens. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, macro photography is fucking cake. Consistently interesting shots that you just don't get to see very often with your pitiful human eyes. Don't get me wrong, there's some brilliant macro out there that I couldn't hope to replicate. You do have to play around a bit, and lighting makes a huge difference, but for a novice like myself, every shot made me feel like goddamned King Aparthur of Castle Cameralot, wielding my trusty Exposibur (too much?).
Came home, plopped them into the computer, did some culling, and here you have it. There's another toy I spent a good chunk of yesterday playing around with, called Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is a neat little piece of post-production software which you can (conveniently for me) download free to try for one month. It's so powerful, even Gandalf would be all like "Yo, dawg...". I have to admit, I'm also big into tweaking. This does not mean that I'd like to awkwardly shake my rump up against Robin Thicke's pelvis. That's... something else. I just really like moving sliders left and right; pushing a button right there, or maybe what happens if I push it over here? What happens if I change this... it's all really a strange ritual I do to appease some false god of mine that just doesn't make sense to any normal living thing, but I like it; and, as I'll show you, this post-production tweaking can have some pretty cool effects. I do have a bit of experience with Photoshop, but Lightroom, and this whole photography post-production thing in general, is all new to me. So have a look:
Before
After
I really liked the composition of this photo. I thought the plant itself was super cool looking with the little beads of dew and bold colours. The photo, while still pretty neat, just didn't turn out the way I wanted though, so I made a few changes. To a lesser degree than the next photo you'll see; this one shows some pretty heavy modification, bordering unrealistic. Don't let me fool you, it's still possible to make the photo resemble its original form. I did this to see how far I could take a photo in Lightroom, and while I still obviously don't know the full capabilities of the program, it was actually super simple to use and take advantage of - with a helping of YouTube University. This next one I'm especially happy with.
Before
After
As you can see with the original, I was able to get the sun in a pretty neat spot, and I loved the contrast and how the larger pyramids sort of framed the picture. I was happy with how it turned out, but I still felt it needed some higher exposure and a blast of colour to give it that dramatic punch. Sooo I changed a few things. If there are any photography purists here, you probably just finished choking back down that little shot of vomit that worked it's way up when you saw the picture. The biggest thing I wanted to see was what some post-processing can do. There's a lot to be said for getting the right shot, but for me, this is also about getting the best results I can in the shortest time-frame. I definitely want to keep improving my photography skills as this progresses, but I also really enjoy the editing aspect as well, so I'll being utilizing and expanding on both in tandem.
So some of you might be wondering exactly what I've been doing for the past few weeks, other than taking pictures of cats and flowers. There's no magic bullet to getting better at something, but it's important to know where you're looking. I'm personally really interested in the learning the 'meat' (sorry vegetarians) of what I'm doing. I just want to know what something is, how it can help me, and then move on. It's important, particularly on a professional level, to know all the nitty gritty details about whatever you're learning, but there's something to be said about sharpening your focus (last one, I promise) on the things that make the biggest difference in any given skill set. I'd like to use my experience to help you with this, and at the end of the project, I'm hoping to do a more in depth summary of what I've learned.
What you want to know:
The internet, and especially YouTube, is an amazing source of blah blah blah. All you need to know is Mike Browne. Seriously, no matter your skill level, go and check this guy out if you want to improve your photography. He is an incredible instructor, and has been indispensable for my photography challenge. It doesn't really get any more "clear, concise, and simple" as they advertise on the website. Not to mention interesting! He also has a youtube channel, both of which contain his plethora of useful videos. I loved this guy's instruction so much, I went ahead and bought his DVD (available for download, and I strongly recommend it if you really want to fast track your learning process from a beginner level for a measly 20 bucks) full well knowing majority of this information was available for free on the youtube. I can't say enough good things about his videos, just do yourself a favour and go watch them. Keep in mind that it's mostly based for DSLR cameras, but there's so much on offer here, you'll find helpful videos whether you're using a $5000+ kit or your shitty-phone-that-barely-takes-pictures.
If you're interested in Lightroom, here's a link to their free trial. Such an easy to use, versatile, and powerful piece of software, particularly if you're shooting with RAW files, (which is pretty much a must if you're doing any higher end photography with editing involved). You can probably find programs that are better at doing specific things than Lightroom, but there's so much on offer here. It is a little on the expensive side, so there are cheaper, or free-er alternatives that might be to your preference. If you want to learn how to quickly make the most with your images in post production, I've got a guy for that too - Serge Ramelli. Again, he took my Lightroom fumbling to a whole other level. If you want to know the best features of Lightroom and how to use them, he is your guy. He also has a large suite of full-on tutorials you can buy if you're really serious about learning the program. I'm positive that his material is going to assist you in other post-processing software as well. Also, I should note that I have no affiliation with these guys whatsoever, other than having spent hours upon hours poring over their instructional videos.
Some of you might be interested in the gear I've been using, and how I've been using it. The camera itself is a Canon EOS Rebel T4i. I don't have the experience or the authority to comment on the quality of it, but as a Canon, I assume it's a higher end piece of tech, and for my purposes, it's been more than sufficient. I got away from using auto as quickly as I could, not to say it's useless. If you're shooting somewhere with really dynamic and varied lighting where you want to snap a picture at a moment's notice, (like a concert or something) that's a totally valid place to use auto. I taught myself, and did a bunch of experimenting in manual mode. That's where you're going to learn your camera the best, hands down. But all the shooting modes your camera offers are useful in different situations. For instance, I used aperture priority pretty dominantly in the shots you see here A: because it influences depth of field which is so crucial to macro photography, and B: because it's way easier to take photos on the move, and chase down stellar lighting conditions when you don't have to constantly fiddle with all your settings.
I started shooting with a 40mm lens, fairly close to normal human perception (with roughly 50mm being the most comparable). Simple, and great to learn on. No matter what kind of camera or lense you use, knowing the kind of focal length you're working with and then using that to it's maximum effect is important. For that reason, don't let your camera's zoom dictate your shot. Use the focal length that works best for your shot, and then move into the right position for that focal length. Majority of the photos seen here were shot with a 100mm macro lens, and a larger focal length is just generally a better idea for macro shots, regardless of whether or not you have a dedicated lens. The wider angle shots were done with a 18-135mm lens with image stablization, but all on the smallest setting of 18mm, just so I could play with a new focal length.
Flash, as a beginner, is an entirely different ball-game. I have played with both the built-in flash and an external flash, and I know a whole lot more than I did when I started. I didn't use it for any of these photos. My feeling is that if you don't know how to use a flash properly, in most instances you're better off without it, and it's an often over-used automatic feature on cameras. Hunt for the best light possible without having to rely on this bad boy. That being said, it's still extremely useful, and as I improve with it, I'd like to discuss it a little more.
So this is all the time and energy I have left at the moment. I've put more thought into my goals for the next several weeks, especially the final end result at the end of the month. I'm thinking something along the lines of a thematic shoot. Whether it be landscapes or portraits or what have you. Couple of ideas:
-Scouring Edmonton for some hard-to-reach, little known points of interest, get some cool original photos from around the city.
-A fun little "Wildest Dreams" type shoot with people in elaborate situations depicting them in their fantastical delusions of grandeur. This one could be a lot of fun, any volunteers?
I'm still completely open to ideas, and I'm going to try and get more involved with the photography community, as well as see if I can find any potential models in a short time span. If you have any questions about the project, me, or just photography in general, I'd be glad to answer them as best I can! Thanks for reading, and keep posted!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete