A New Love

I'm starting to love photography. Growing up, my mom always took fantastic pictures and organized them into albums for our family to flip through from time to time. A few years ago, she traded in her film camera for a digital SLR and I was immediately impressed with the quality of pictures she was taking. I got inspired, and saved up some money to buy one of our own. We landed on the Nikon D40, which we are very pleased with so far. 

Up until a few months ago, I was stuck in "automatic mode". In other words, I kept my camera dial on that little green camera and let it do all the work for me. This just seemed easy and for all I knew, I figured my camera would make all the right decisions to ensure the perfect shot. Um ... not so much. I knew I needed some help to bring out all the best that my camera had to offer.

My mom and I signed up for a basic photography class at our local library ... a free class, mind you, which we couldn't pass up. The teacher was a professional photographer with a studio in downtown Olathe. Although I think he had a hidden agenda to attain some self-fulfillment (we got to see a lot of his own personal shots), he was a pretty good teacher. The first class was somewhat over our head because there was an assumption that everyone in the room already knew the mechanics of basic photography - you know, the big three (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO (film speed)). My mom and I knew what these all were, but didn't know how to manipulate them to create ideal photos. I think we immediately became the annoying students because one or both of us was raising our hand every few minutes to ask a clarifying question. How else are you gonna learn, huh? Our teacher was patient taught us camera basics as well as how to "frame" a shot, how to look for distractions in your photos, how to use light and creative angles, and how to find a kodak moment in just about every setting. He sent us outside for about 30 minutes to take shots and then had us come back in to display our photos so we could provide praise and constructive feedback to one another. This was fun and really helpful!

We got excited after this first class, and decided to sign up for another one.  Well, imagine our surprise when we walked into the room only to discover that it was the same teacher and same content as our first class. Whoopsie. We felt like we needed the additional practice, so we decided to stick around. At the end of this class, when our teacher was reviewing my photos, he told me that I had a good "eye" for photography. This made me smile, until I realized that I had taken this exact same class twice. If I hadn't figured this stuff out to some degree, there was something wrong with me! Here are some of my favorite "practice" pictures:

During our 14 hour drive to Alabama, I decided that I needed to pursue some independent study. I purchased these books, and was immediately impressed with how helpful the content was. My favorite part was the ease of understanding (and even a little humor) ... my camera's user manual was like a foreign language in comparison.

Ella was the reason we upgraded our camera, so obviously she's my biggest inspiration and my best subject for shots! I recently came across this book, which has given me a million tips and ideas for catching special moments of my toddlers life. It's my favorite photography book (so far).

I've learned a lot from my classes and from these books and am hoping to learn a lot more as time rolls on. Here are the most useful tips I've gained (aka Photography Basics for Dummies):

1. Ix-Nay the Ash-Flay.

Avoid using a flash whenever possible. Your pictures will look so much better if you can capture a shot using natural lighting. This means that you need to find an indoor space with lots of light streaming in a window or an outdoor shot without direct overhead sun (think dusk, dawn, or overcast skies). If you are really motivated, you can also purchase a lens with a low F-stop (wide aperture), one that will let in a lot of light in low-light situations. We bought this one and I am head over heels in love. Here's a couple of pictures that were practically taken in the dark without a flash:

 the bar was actually much darker than this ... only downside is any movement causes blur. This is when a tripod (or resting your arm on a countertop) comes in handy

wouldn't have gotten this shot without my lens ... no flashes allowed b/c they startled the jellyfish

2. Remember the Rule of Thirds.

This is a composition/design rule which makes so much sense to me. Basically, you have to imagine that your image is broken into 9 equal parts using two vertical and two horizontal lines. Any important elements in your photo (individuals, subjects, etc) should be centered at intersection points or along the lines. This creates more visual "interest" in your photo.

I try to do this when I am taking the picture, but most of the time I end up doing it as I crop the photo during editing. Here are some examples:

An exception would be a group shot, in which you would want to try and center the group:

3. Bust Out of Auto

I am getting braver, and am trying to use my "S" (shutter priority) and "A" (aperture priority) modes rather then the automatic mode. This enables me to set each of these features while the camera automatically sets the other modes. I use shutter priority mode when I am trying to catch an action shot. I read somewhere that 1/250 freezes most action, so that's a good rule of thumb. I used a speed of 1/800 to catch these shots and stop water (and Ella) in mid-air:

On the flip side, you can slow down your shutter speed to create visual interest in a shot such as a waterfall. I think I probably used 1/5 or something like that to catch this shot. I had to set my camera on the edge of a bridge to keep it steady; otherwise, my picture would have been a disaster. Again, it would have been nice to have had my tripod (need to start carrying that sucker around with me).

I use aperture priority mode when I want to lower (widen) the aperture so that my subject is crystal clear while the background is blurry. This is a fun "bokeh" picture where the blur of the lights creates a cool photo element. 

this was shot at F 5.6, the lowest my lens would allow at the time. Now my lens will go as low as F 1.8 ... can't wait for those Christmas lights!!

4. Fill Your Frame

This is pretty self explanatory - try to get your subject to fill your entire frame when taking a picture. You can always do this when cropping, but this causes your picture to lose some quality. I look like a dork trying to do this with my new lens. It's a prime lens, so it doesn't zoom in or out. I have to fill my frame the old fashioned way - by moving my feet.

5. Experiment

Don't be afraid to try taking pictures from a new angle, or using creativity to make a unique shot. I'm working on doing this more often - makes taking pictures that much more fun.

Even if you have a point-and-shoot camera, you should be able to use most of these tips and tricks. The best advice I got was to get out there and practice. Take hundreds of pictures and delete the ones that don't work. On average, I probably delete about 75% of the pictures I take. I just keep my favorites to edit. That's the beauty of digital for ya. The main editing I do is cropping, but I may tweak the lighting a little, remove red eye, or do some minimal retouching if I'm feeling motivated. You can do all of these things with a basic editing program like Picassa, which is a free program from Google. My mom and I both use this program to edit and store photos, and we like it a lot. Eventually, I would like to get a program such as Photoshop or Lightroom, but I know that's another learning curve.