Photography

Beginner Photography Training   by Simon Takk

What does it take to get good at photography? Photography training the proper way can make learning how to take great shots easy and a “breeze” whereas other methods will make you never reach that “artistic” and “clean” quality in your photos.

There are two essential parts to photography that you should learn as a beginner.

Camera Controls

Although photography is often looked at as an “Art” where magic happens, if you don’t know how to use a camera then you won’t get anywhere. Fortunately, camera control basics are pretty easy to get a grasp on.

There are automatic controls and manual controls on each and every camera. Even phone cameras have some manual settings. In general, for photography training you’re going to want to learn what all the manual controls are and how to use them.

To start, there are two very important controls to know: shutter stop and aperture. These both control the amount of light let into the camera. By controlling both of these settings you affect the light exposure as well as the depth of field of the shot. In addition, you could do cool action shots at high speeds or shoot a photo at extremely slow speeds and make water look like clouds.

Your goal as a beginner should be to learn how to use an SLR camera on full manual. This means setting the aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus, and a number of other settings. Don’t worry, it’s not hard. Once you get the hang of it it’s actually something you wish every camera had.

While automatic controls are very convenient, they prevent us from taking the photo that we imagine when seeing a scenery to photograph. Photography training enables us to see a scene, imagine how we want it in your minds, and then take the shot and match our vision to the end result.

Creative Composition

The next important part to photography training is learning composition, or how to properly arrange the contents within the screen of your camera. This is an ancient art with techniques and traditions dating back to the beginning of art history. The same techniques that apply to painting, drawing, etc apply to this. A good idea is to get some books on composition for any art (except music) and learn the techniques there.

Some basic examples are the “rule of thirds” and “leading lines”.
The Rule of Thirds – This rule states that instead of placing a subject at the center of the image, offsetting them to the left, right, top or bottom.

Leading Lines – Using the lines around you to point towards the subject of interest. Having the lines lead the viewer.
Although these examples are basic they do make a big difference in your photos if you’ve never consciously taken pictures with this in mind.

When you have both of these two parts of photography training down (composition and technical camera usage) you should have no problem getting better at photography. The next step from there is refining your style and developing your artistic eye.

About the Author

Be sure to look at some online photography courses as well as this article on photography training!
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