Learning to see

Once I got the basic hang of my camera,  how to set exposure and composition I thought I was ready to shoot pictures. And so I did, a few shots that I had in my head of my favourite lake side, the Upvan lake.

But i dried up quickly and I realised that I really didn't know what to make photos of. So my immediate assignment was to learn to see. And I wanted exercises that would help me see.

Bryan Peterson's Learning to See Creatively is a great book - lucid and interestingly written. Here's his blog.
Also artofphotography.tv has a series of podcasts - Master Class Live  which is another great approach to opening up your vision as a photographer.

Here are some blogs that I have read and bookmarked, hope they help you:

• Karen Walrond's simple post with 7 exercises
• Lon Britton's tips on Developing the Creative Eye

Since a photograph is basically two-dimensional art the design principles must apply. Hence I ordered Betty Edwards workbook so I am going to dabble in drawing till I learn to 'see'. Hmmm... let's see I may just post a pair of before/after drawings if and only if they don't embarass me too much!

First shots

Here are a couple of photos that I took a few days after I got my camera. I love light. I specially love the lights of the night. I have tweaked the second photo in Photoshop using something close to the HDR technique - stacking 3 layers of photos taken with different exposures (20, 25 and 30 seconds).

Log of my journey in learning photography

I am starting this log for the selfish purpose of tracking my progress in learning photography. But as I write this I guess that there are many out there who are starting out like I am and I'd be delighted if my experience could help them in any way. I intend to post as regularly as I can, with my photos and thoughts.

Equipment:

So far I have bought some equipment to start me off - a Nikon DSLR camera that came with a 18-105mm kit lens, a 50mm standard lens, a second hand tripod (rather heavy :-( ), ball head and UV filters for each lens (for dust and fingerprint protection).

First lessons:

I ran through plenty of videos on YouTube to get a hang of stuff like Focusing, principles of exposure, even how to change lenses on your camera! I admit I have not done full justice and kinda have skimmed through most but that's my style of learning. I skim first and dig deeper later. Here's also my chance to say a big thanks to all those who have taken so much effort to share their knowledge and experience on YT, Blogs etc..

Listing a few of my favourites:

• Understanding Digital Photography with Bob Krist - I got a neat overview in this video. youtu.be/RsoV4odOPgo
  
• All about Nikon equipment on the Nikon Help Hotline - youtube.com/user/Lilkiwiguy87
   
• User jonvideo's videos are so thorough! I need to watch each multiple times to grasp the many things covered. A few of them are:
  White Balance - youtu.be/1MQTO9tiXb0
  Understanding the shooting info screen on Nikon D90  - youtu.be/lDT7jAXmHPE
• Inspiring: Bob Holmes on using natural light - youtu.be/ygeixGd8ZMw 
• A blog that I avidly follow: digital-photography-school.com/
• A big thank you to Ted Forbes because he was exactly what I was looking for online. I know photography is an art and must be studied like one, along with the all the technical aspects of the tools (read camera and stuff). I am not singling  out any lesson because I found each very valuable yet I believe it works best collectively. Check out:
  tedforbes.com/
  theartofphotography.tv/
  youtube.com/user/theartofphotography
• My first eggsercise! Thanks Joe. - youtu.be/qM7CcUrUD2g

So much for my first post of what I hope will be a faithful series...