Photography Lessons

lessons photography

Lesson 1 – Intent

Why do you want to take pictures? You may want to share with others how you see the world around you, you may want to document your life and that of the people you love, you may have a desire to create images that blow other people away. There are so many excellent reasons to get into photography and why you do so is up to you.
I've put this section first because when I learned photography – it was technique first and art second. That is a time honored way of learning photography. But now that I've done it for 30 years I think it was a backwards way of learning photography.

Photography is an art and you are the artist. If you’re thinking you could never be an artist I have good news for you – you already are. Even just taking the time to read this page you've shown you have the desire make images that give you pleasure and can affect others – that is art.

Now comes the fun part – think about why you want to take pictures. Write down a list of:

1.     Things you like about photography. Do you love the moment of seeing the images in prints or on your screen? Is it the challenge of making the photo? Is it the sharing the images with your friends? Is it the memories you get when you look at your photos later? Whatever it is you like about taking pictures, write it down.

2.     What you want to achieve with photography. Do you want to remember what your kids are like at each stage of their growing up? Do you like flowers or architecture or mountains and want to document them? Do you want to show the human condition? Do you want to pursue a career in photography? Write down what you want your photography to do.

3.     What subjects you want to shoot. Flowers, dogs, kids, models, food, people’s feet, whatever. Write down those things you find catch your eye or make you wish you had your camera when you see it.

4.     How you feel about those subjects. Do you love it, hate it, feel afraid of it, laugh at it, wish it was yours? This is actually the most important section of the lesson. When you understand what you feel towards something, you’ll find your photography of it improves automatically.

Now grab your pen and start writing. Once you’re done, put it on the wall, throw it into your camera bag or put it somewhere you can easily review it. Add or change it as you grow as a photographer. But once you have the list, you have a great tool to make your photography better.

You may have noticed the link in top right corner for the book “Drawing on the artist within” by Betty Edwards. I highly recommend this book for learning about bringing out your inner artist – it is a very, very good book which taught me a lot.

Lesson 2 – Exposure (Basic)

Note: Completing this lesson requires a camera capable of manually setting exposure.

What is the right exposure? Not to make this complicated, but exposure is a choice you have to make. The exposure you choose determines how the image looks. But, we’ll start with a basic understanding and work up from there.

Exposure consists of four factors:

1.     how much light is in front of you – which can be changed by adding lights or flash,

2.     how sensitive the film is to light – called ISO(remember, I use the word “film” to refer to whatever medium used for capturing the image, whether it is the Digital Camera’s sensor or actually film,)

3.     the amount of light going through a lens – called the aperture,

4.     how long the film is exposed – called the shutter speed.

For a little more about how this works see the Camera Basics Page.

For the moment, we’ll set an average exposure on an average scene.

If you’re camera does not have a built in meter – its really old. But, that’s okay. You’ll just have to buy a hand held meter. If you have an SLR or advanced point and shoot digital camera, spend some time with the manual to find out how to bring up the “Histogram” which graphically shows the amount of light in an exposure.

First exercise – set your ISO to 100, set your camera to ƒ16 and the shutter to 1/125th of a second. (Some digital cameras are limited to ISO 200 – which means you have to cut your exposure by one stop, i.e. use 1/250th instead of 1/125th of a second) With this setting, take your camera out during a sunny day, put the sun behind you and shoot anything – you’ll have a well exposed image. This is called the “Sunny 16″ rule.

To make life interesting, and your photography more creative, you can change the setting and still have the same exposure. These are equivalent exposures: Try going to ƒ11 at 1/250th of a second. Push it a little further at ƒ8 at 1/500th of a second. These are all the same exposure because the same total amount of light is hitting the film.

Of course, you’re not always going to shoot with the sun behind you on a sunny day. For other situations you need to be able to find out your exposure with a meter. This can be in your camera or hand held.

Looking at any scene, your meter will give you a suggestion as to what exposure to use. Most of the time this is fairly accurate.

Using your meter, take a reading off of something with mixed tones in shade on a sunny day – you’ll find the exposure is two or three stops slower than the “Sunny 16.”

Second exercise

One of the best things to do for more accurate exposure is to meter the light hitting the specific subject you’re shooting. Find a place where there is a small patch of light such as a break in a wall, light coming directly through a window, etc. Take a picture from far enough back you get lots of the shadow area. You’ll probably find the patch of light is way too bright in the picture. Walk right up to the patch of light and see what the meter suggests you use there. Then, go back to where you’re taking the picture from – and with the camera in manual – set the exposure to what was suggested.

You can also use your hand to help determine exposure in a variety of situations. First – on a sunny day, do the f16 rule, setting the camera to f16 at 1/125 of a second. Hold your hand in the sunlight and meter it. You’ll probably notice the meter says you should change the exposure. Note how much the meter says your hand is off from the f16 rule and keep that in mind. Lets say the meter said you should expose your hand at f22. That is one stop darker than what is actually needed. Now walk into the shade and meter off your hand again. If it says f11, you know that is one stop too dark, so set your camera to f8.

Knowing what your hand is for exposure can help you set exposure in most situations – just make sure your hand is in the same kind of light as the subject you’re shooting.

A little more accurate way to do exposures is to buy an “18 per cent grey card.” Most camera stores and photo departments should have these. To use it, just put it beside the subject you’re shooting, and meter off of it. If you’re further away than is practical to walk up to the subject – set the card in the same kind of light as the subject and again meter off the card.

Third exercise – either with an 18 per cent grey card, or using your hand as described above, meter something in dark shade and find out the exposure there.

A final note – A meter is very handy for getting your exposure, but it does have a limitation. As said earlier, the meter thinks the world is 18 per cent grey. Most of the world is kind of like 18 per cent grey, but not all of it.

Look at what you’re shooting. If its black (or very dark), your meter will try to make it grey – and make the exposure too light. Conversely, if you’re subject is white, the meter will try to make it darker – or 18 per cent grey.

There are two more lessons on high key and low key photos which will help you handle more extreme situations.

Note: Be aware that some digital cameras have exposure compensation built in to prevent overexposure. If exposure is too bright the highlights could be “blown out” and detail lost in the brightest parts of the image. By artificially “darkening” the image, the camera makers try to make sure the exposures aren’t too bright. This doesn’t affect all cameras but it does seem to be the case for some. That means that the exposure needed in lessons 2, 3 and 4 may be slightly higher than suggested in the lessons. You might use the “expose to the right” method.

Next Lesson: High Key

Lesson 3 – Exposure: High Key

 

A high-key photo is basically white on white. This style of photography conveys a feeling of lightness and clarity. Typically what happens is the camera wants to make the white of the photo – without dark areas to ‘balance’ the exposure – too dark. So your white’s become gray. You may have seen this particularly when shooting a snowy field on a gray day. However, exposing for high key is fairly easy.

With an in camera meter, you can measure the light hitting a white area, and open up two stops – such as changing the aperture from ƒ11 to ƒ5.6.

Exercise: Put a large piece of white paper or white fabric on a table beside a large north facing window, place an egg in the middle. Take a picture with the exposure the in camera meter suggests. You may have to use a tripod to keep the camera still if the shutter speed is too slow.

Next, meter off a white area and open up two stops – as described at the top of the this page. Compare the images.

This can work well for other scenarios where exposure is a tricky thing – like weddings where the bride is wearing white and the groom is in black. Quite often, the dress winds up blown out with no detail in the dress. By metering off the dress and opening up two stops you can prevent this from happening.

You can also use a hand held meter to measure the light hitting the subject, which will be more accurate than the in-camera meter.

Note: Be aware that some digital cameras have exposure compensation built in to prevent overexposure. If exposure is too bright the highlights could be “blown out” and detail lost int the brightest parts of the image. By artificially “darkening” the image, the camera makers try to make sure the exposures aren’t too bright. This doesn’t affect all cameras but it does seem to be the case for some. That means that the exposure needed in lessons 2, 3 and 4 may be slightly higher than suggested in the lessons. You might use the “expose to the right” method.

Next Lesson: Low Key

Lesson 4 – Exposure: Low Key

This is the opposite of the previous lesson. A low key photo is pretty much black on black, or at least very dark on dark. This kind of photo can create a sense of intimacy, foreboding, sadness, and / or heaviness. You might have a face or object rimmed with light in a silhouette, but dark on the side towards the camera and dark background.

The problem with shooting dark on dark is that the camera will try to lighten the image up making the picture look washed out and grey.

For this shot you’ll need a really dark cloth, preferably black, and an object that is dark or has some dark tones in it. You could shoot a portrait of a dark haired person in dark clothing against a black or dark background for a low-key portrait.

Note: Shooting an object or person that is very light or white against black has a different effect and is not really considered “low key”, although it can be striking image anyways.

Exercise: First, shoot the image with what you camera says is the right exposure. Very few in-camera meters will render this scene accurately. Now, take a meter reading on something dark/black that has the light hitting it and close the aperture two stops (i.e. if it is ƒ1.8 you’ll want to go to ƒ4.)

Compare the two images and see what difference it made.

Next Lesson: Depth of Field

Lesson 5 – Depth of Field

Depth of field – also sometimes known as depth of focus (although that does has a different technical meaning – some people use that term) – is an area many photographers feel some confusion over.

By changing the aperture in the lens, you can make the resulting picture have more of the picture in focus from near to far, or you can limit the picture’s focus on one place.

At ƒ1.8, the focus point will be much more defined with things in front of and behind the subject becoming softer looking the further from the subject they are. This is a very nice way to bring attention to the subject.

At ƒ22, the focus will seem to be sharp from very close to the camera to pretty much infinity. This is great for giving a sense of the place you shot the image, or for including many people in the image and keeping everyone clearly in focus.

However, there are limits to how that will appear in the final image.

Exercise: Find a subject/object that is still or will be in one place for a couple of minutes. Stand about 2 feet from the subject and focus on it. Set your ƒstop to 1.8 (or a close as possible to that based on the light) and set the shutter speed to get a proper exposure according to your meter. You can set the camera to Exposure Priority (AV mode) and let the camera set the shutter speed automatically. You should be using  50 mm lens or a zoom lens set to about 50 mm.

Now set your ƒstop to 16 and change the shutter as needed.

Step back to about 10 feet from your subject and re do the above settings – first at ƒ1.8 then at ƒ16.

To really push this exercise, try all the above steps with different lenses or at different lengths if you have a zoom lens – i.e.. try it at 35 mm and at 200mm, or whatever your zoom lens range is.

PS – a related subject is Bokeh which is a taken from a Japanese word ‘boke’ which roughly means blur or haze. When a photographer says an image has ‘good bokeh’ he means the out of focus areas have a smooth quality. Different lens and camera combination have different qualities of bokeh.

Next Lesson: How the shutter canaffect your image

Lesson 6 – Shutter Effects

You've probably seen those pictures of a race car or bike rider where the subject is in fairly sharp focus but the background is blurry with streaks denoting speed. Perhaps you've seen a waterfall that looks like flowing silk. Or you seen a picture with someone totally frozen in place during an athletic moment.

These are a result of creatively using the shutter on the camera. High shutter speeds, such as 1/500th, 1/1000th, 1/2000th or higher (remember these are fractions of a second) create a stopped motion.

Alternatively, slow shutter speeds such as 1/15th, 1/4, or even whole seconds, creates a sense of motion through blurring of some part of the picture.

One of the issues is quite often if the shutter speed is too slow, an image can be blurry from “motion blur” which can detract from an image if the effect isn't intentional.

Exercise: This is best done on a lightly clouded day that isn't too dark or too bright. Find a friend with a bicycle or who likes to run. Go to an open area and set up your position. Have your friend ride or run past you many many times. You’ll need to do lots of exposures to get the shots.

First set your shutter speed as high as you can for the light – hopefully around 1/500 to 1/2000 – with the aperture as open as you can set (i.e. ƒ1.8).

As your friend moves past you, keep him or her in the viewfinder, turning yourself at the waist to constantly point your camera at your friend. Take lots of pictures for several passes. This is known as “panning.” You might want to try a couple of passes without tripping the shutter and practicing keeping your friend in the viewfinder as he or she goes past you.

Now, set your shutter speed as low as you can – I’d suggest around 1/30, remembering to set the aperture as high as you can for the light. Repeat the above panning motion to keep your friend in the viewfinder. Take lots more pictures, remembering to keep turning yourself at the waist as your friend goes by.

PS – to keep your images acceptably sharp, the rule-of-thumb is to keep your shutter speed at least the same as your focal length – ie a 50 mm lens should be used with a shutter speed of 1/50 of a second or faster. However, I find with most digital cameras you want to add another 50 % to that – so you want to shoot at 1/80 or faster (The one third of a stop equivalent of 1/75).

For sharp pictures a tripod is a very handy tool to free up your choice of shutter speeds.

Alternatively, you can hand hold a camera to surprisingly extended times with good technique: place the bottom of the camera body in your left hand and support its weight with that hand, then tuck your left elbow basically into your lower left rib cage. Finally hold the viewfinder close to your eye and use your right hand to trigger the shutter and further stabilize the camera. Breath in and let your breath out slowly while squeezing the shutter.

Next Lesson: Rule of Thirds

Lesson 7 – Rule of Thirds

The most used lesson in artistic composition is the rule of thirds. While there are lots of ways to compose pictures, this short cut always makes an image more interesting than most where the subject is dead center. If you’re shooting a close up of a person’s face or other object, putting it in the center is the thing to do. But, if you have a picture with a person in the center and lots of scenery around him or her – well, it could be improved.

Exercise: Take a piece of paper and draw two horizontal lines dividing the paper into thirds.

Draw two vertical lines again diving the paper into thirds.

Note the four places where lines intersect each other.

Now go take a picture of anything – placing the main subject at one of those four positions one third of the way from the top or bottom and one third of the way from the side. In fact, try placing the same subject at all four intersection positions. Take a look at the pictures.

Next lesson: Diagonal Lines (LeadingLines)

Lesson 8 – Diagonal Lines

A nice dynamic method of composing a photo is to have a diagonal line running through he photo, from corner to corner or from 1/3 down from the top to 1/3 up from the bottom. The line could be a street, a fence rail, a road or a shoreline. Anything which creates a line or division in the picture.

Whether the line rises or falls creates different feelings about the photo. Typically, for English speaking people and others with “left to right” direction of writing, if an line descends into the picture from top left to bottom right it appears to be entering the picture. If the line rises from bottom left to top right, it appears to be leaving the picture.

You can use those concepts to create specific feelings in your picture. Such as, a person standing beside a lake shore – if the line descends, it would suggest the person is entering the picture and thus would be, perhaps, happier and more inclusive. If the line is rising it would suggest the person is leaving and is thus more distant and removed.

Diagonal lines in photos can be used for what is called a “leading line” which helps the view be lead through the image in directed manner. Typically you’d have the lines “pointing” at the main subject of your photo – which puts the leading lines into the Negative Space (you’ll come across more about Negative Space in Lesson 11.)

Exercise: Find a location where you can use a line to run diagonally through a picture. Take two pictures, one with the line descending into the picture from the left, and the other rising to right.

Next Lesson: “S” Curves

Lesson 9 – ‘S’ Curves

Another dynamic composition tool is to include a “S” curve. As the name suggests, a major element of the composition would be an object such as a stream, path, railing, or other curved object that creates an “S.”

If the S is right facing and starts in the lower left corner and exits the upper right corner – the feeling for most English speaking people is that the picture is moving away from the viewer.

If the “S” is reversed, and starts in the upper left corner coming down to the lower right, the picture seems to be coming towards the viewer. This effect is from, I believe, learning to read left to right.

Exercise: Go out and find an S Curve to photograph. Explore right facing and left facing curves and see how they feel to you.

Next Lesson: Balance in composition

Lesson 10 – Balance

There are a few ways to achieve balance in photos.

The first is through symmetry – where you have equal size subjects on either side of the photo. This creates a static, solid look with little movement.

The second is to place dissimilar size objects on either side, but to use the center of the photo as a balance point in an asymmetrical composition. Just like an adult and a child on a teeter-toter, the adult has to be much closer to the center balance point for the child not to be held way up in the air the whole time. If you have a grouping of objects on one side, you’ll need something further out on the other side to create balance. An asymmetrical composition creates a sense of movement and action, even if the subject is a stone.

Exercise – collect a bunch of rocks, some similar size and some dissimilar. On the sidewalk or other handy surface, try creating several symmetric and asymmetric compositions, taking pictures of each.

This exercise is based on exercises in Drawing on the Artist Within. This is an excellent book for learning about creating art – the basics are taught through drawing but are applicable to all art forms and just great for learning to be creative. I highly recommend it. (click on the cover image to purchase from Amazon.com)

Next Lesson: Negative Space

Lesson 11 – Negative Space

One way of making sure your composition is strong is to pay attention to the positive and negative spaces.

The primary subject of your photo, a person, building, toy car, whatever, is the “positive space.”

Negative space is everything else. Something you see in a lot of photography is things sticking out of heads, wires across the scene you didn't see when taking the picture, and so on. This is just from paying so much attention to the subject that photographers forget what is in the background or surrounding the subject.

Exercise: take pictures of three different subjects outside. Doesn't matter what they are, a person, a car, a building. While taking the picture, don’t worry about the subject, just pay attention to what is around and behind the subject.

Use the background to compose the shot – for this exercise, the actual subject is not important. If the background is not working for you, move around until it is – zoom in or zoom out to change perspective, get low, or go higher. Whatever makes the background a pleasing photo.

Next Lesson: Pick a Subject

Lesson 12 – Pick A Subject

The absolute best way to improve as a photographer is to DO photography – get out and shoot. A great way to push yourself into better photos is by concentrating on one subject over a period of time. Each time you photograph your subject, whether its a person, plant, place or thing, find a new way to photograph it. It could be from a different angle, different time of day, different light – whatever you can do to see the subject in a new way.

For this lesson, pick something near by you can photograph on a regular basis. It could be: your car, your cat, your “significant other”, your guitar, what you see while walking through the neighborhood, objects that look like numbers, rusty objects, etc.

Anything that you like to look at.

Exercise:

Every day for the next 10 days take some pictures of it. Look for different ways of seeing the same subject. Place your subject in different places, different light situations, try some of the different exercises in composition – find an S curve in the subject, or place your subject into an S curve, same with diagonal lines, etc. Just keep shooting and learning about the same subject.

What you learn from this simple exercise will carry through into most things you shoot.

Enjoy.

Want to learn more? Check out the eBooks we have for sale or the bookstore courtesy Eshansurkar 

Night Light Lessons

As stated a tripod or other solid support is a necessity. if you are looking for good portraits or Candids at night you will need good Flash preferably multiple off camera flash units.

you can Meter a scene with your Fastest Lens [ wide open aperture] using the highest ISO setting available to get an indication of appropriate exposure in Low Light levels. then extrapolate for normal ISO settings and Appropriate aperture for the DOF you want to achieve . for example you meter the scene in Aperture Priority with aperture of F4 at ISO of 6400 and get Shutter speed of 1/15 sec 

you want to shoot at F11 for DOF and normal ISO 200 
so you have to use a shutter speed 3 stops slower to correct for the Aperture setting and 5 stops slower to compensate for the ISO setting for a total correction of 8 stops . as a result you would achieve the same exposure at F11, ISO200 and 15 seconds Shutter speed

you should use long exposure Noise reduction for best results
you probably have to focus manually as AF in low light is very unreliable Hyperfocal distance is a good choice
you will likely need a Flash light to get setting correct in the Dark
if exposure goes beyond 30 seconds the camera can only handle this in Manual Exposure Mode with the Shutter speed set to B

use a remote release[ cable or IR depending on camera] to prevent vibration when you push the button best if you can push once to start the shot and a second time to stop it holding down the release for 40 seconds will cause Camera movement blurring your shot

hope it helps 
Eshan Surkar

Source(s):https://www.facebook.com/Eshansurkarphotography

5 years Nikon DSLR experience