Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” —
Camera and imaging software companies like to say that their products are “easy-to-use,” sometimes forgetting the part of of the process in trying to make that actually happen can create unrealistic expectations. But user errors can also be responsible for much of the frustration of capturing, enhancing and printing digital images. So, as a coffee mug I used to own once had written on it, “what’s a poor hippo to do?”
Here’s A Few Suggestions…
The following are a few tips to should/can minimize any user errors and help improve your photography at the same time, starting with:
- Read the manual. I know this will be difficult for some, especially those who prefer to hack their way through a camera’s multiple layers of menus because they used to own a Pentax K1000 but please do it anyway. As Mr. Monk liked to say, “You’ll thank me later.”
Read a book. Most photo books are well written,even ones I don’t review here for the reasons I’ve written about before. Even the most basic or maybe a book filled with really great photographs can help getting you get up to speed and improve how you make photographs.- Read a Blog, listen to a podcast. There’s lots of them available including the Pixels, Grain & Cookies podcast, where in our most recent podcast Barry Staver and I come to a startling and perhaps erroneous conclusion about monochrome photography. But there are lots of great blogs such PetaPixel who also has some wonderful content on YouTube.
How I Made this Photo: I know what you may be thinking: “You drove all the way to Zion National Park and made a photograph of clouds reflected in a little stream?” Yes I did. I am not now nor I have never been a landscape photographer. I just capture images as I see them, This photograph was made using a Pentax K100D when I was writing the Magic Lantern Guide for this camera. The exposure was 1/90 sec at f/6.7 at ISO 400 with a plus one and one half exposure compensation.. The JPEG file was lightly enhanced using Vivenza.
- Don’t assume because you have high scores in Gran Turismo that you know computer basics. That thing on your desk with the cord or maybe without one is a mouse not a card reader. Don’t laugh, I had a student at one of my Miami workshops who continuously tried to use his card reader as a mouse.
- Don’t buy thousands of dollars worth of equipment at once and try to make them all work together. Take it one piece of gear at a time and don’t forget to practice.
- Don’t call your friend Renée all the time asking her where the Fade command is located in Photoshop or how to change a folder‘s name. The latter question was an actual phone I once got from a photographer/friend. You’re not the only person calling her for advice and she has a life. Find out the answers for yourself because…
- Don’t forget Google exists. I get lots of e-mail questions from readers where I don’t know the answer off the top of my head but can be answered by simply using Google. I don’t know everything about photography and neither does anyone else, no matter what some people’s on-line bios may state. Caveat: sometime the information on the Internet Google links to may be wrong. I know it may be hard to accept but you can’t believe everything you read on the Web.
- Don’t get frustrated when something doesn’t work the way that you think it should. You may be wrong but you may also be right and the manufacturer is wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Lastly, don’t forget to shoot anytime you can. Look for places to photograph that inspire you. Many of you know I love to photograph the gazebo in Parker, Colorado’s O’Brien Park but I also ind that the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado is a fun place to shoot. Even if you’re not a rail fan, there’s always something new there and similar places, to discover and photograph.
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