After spending countless hours watching YouTube tutorials, getting used to the settings/functions of my camera, and taking it to a few trips to the zoo and the gym, where I coach, it was time to get some one on one coaching from a professional. It’s like watching a video on how to play the guitar. You will definitely learn how to play, but without a coach to give you that hands on experience, you can easily develop bad habits. Having someone next to you, who can give you immediate feedback, can be quite helpful.
Prior to the start of this semester, I came across a Facebook post from a company that was searching for photographers to shoot bar crawls in major cities across the country. Nashville happened to be one of them. The issue (other than my lack of experience) was you needed a 35mm lens or wider, and you needed an on camera TTL flash. I was already in the market for a 35mm or 50mm lens, but the flash was approaching brand new territory for me. Back to YouTube I went. I did my homework, and picked up a flash and a trigger. Around this time, I also found a great deal on a used Rotolight Neo II from B&H, which is actually the form of lighting I prefer. More so than a flash. LED lighting was another no brainer for me. Just like with the electronic viewfinder, you see what you’re going to get, before you even take the picture. You don’t get that with a flash. It just made more sense to me. Work smarter, not harder. I did submit my application and work to the bar crawl company, told them I’d be happy to be considered as a last minute, backup photographer, and never heard back from them, which I expected. I had zero experience in low light conditions.
I turned to my local community college, to see what photography classes were available. I wanted to take a lighting course. I owned a traditional flash and a Rotolight at this point, and I wanted to learn how to use them. Unfortunately, I was required to take this basic Photo 101 course as a prerequisite to any of the classes I really wanted to take. And after just finishing my 5th week in the class, I can honestly say that if you’re on the fence about taking the “intro to photography” class at your local community college, because you think you’re beyond it, you probably are. If you understand what F-stops are, you know how to use your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to get the correct exposure for an image, you understand that a high ISO will cause grain, you know how to freeze motion with the correct shutter speed, you understand depth of field and how to obtain images with great and shallow depths of field, you know how to avoid blurry images by using shutter speed and a tripod, you understand what soft and harsh lighting conditions look like, you shoot in both manual and RAW (and know what that means) AND on top of all that, your local college will allow you to just take whatever class you want, I’d consider skipping the intro class.
That being said, the class isn’t a waste of time. In my case, classmates are asking me questions about gear, taking photographs, and asking for suggestions, when the instructor isn’t available. So far, we haven’t covered anything I wasn’t familiar with. We meet once a week for 3 hours, and we discuss a different topic every week and our homework is based on that subject. The first week, we didn’t use our cameras. We discussed cameras, gear, and basic requirements of the class. Some of the students wanted to use the first day to find out what kind of camera to purchase. Week 2, we discussed proper exposure, shutter speed, and aperture. We were told to shoot 20 pictures with the proper exposure. I went to a skate park and captured 20 pictures, not knowing we would be doing motion on week 5. Oops. The instructor laughed and said she hoped I didn’t become too bored in the class. I told her I wasn’t bored and I’m still learning. Week 3 was more of the same thing. 20 more pictures focusing on proper exposure, were due for homework. Week 4 was depth of field. Take 20 pictures focusing on both shallow and great depth of field. I was given a slightly more advanced assignment, in order to challenge me a little more (shoot using natural framing, shoot from shade into light, and try to capture blurred motion with a sharp subject). We’ve now gotten to the point where I can’t just go out and shoot a sharp image and turn it in for an A. Now, the class is requiring a little thinking and a little more effort, which I like. Now we are going to actually be graded on the work, based on exposure, subject, DOF, artistic merit, etc. Not composition yet. Week 5 (yesterday) was motion. We have to go out and capture frozen motion, as well as blurred motion, using fast and slow shutter speeds. This is going to be fun. I went to an overpass tunnel after I got off work last night, to capture some head lights and tail lights blurring through the tunnel, and trains kept moving slowly over the overpass. So I walked up to the overpass and it turns out there are like 6 train tracks up there! So I found a new spot and got some great close up pictures of some trains blurred out. Tonight, I’ll head downtown after work and see what I can come up with. I have a few ideas.
Wrist watch check. My first automatic watch. A Seiko 5, SNK803. These are the go to auto watches for people just trying to get into the game, and they are awesome little field watches, with incredible lume. You used to be able to buy these for about $50. Mine was about $69 at Walmart.com, but now Walmart sells it for $93. They’re $80 on Amazon. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
