How to Teach Yourself Photography

Info media photography : To teach yourself photography you need to plan a learning process where you go from the basics to more advanced photo techniques. You should start with camera mechanics and photo composition basics and then move on to more advanced things like creative exposure or conceptual photography.

The first step for anybody that learned photography was learning the basics. For photography, this basically deals with two areas:

1.       Learning basic visual composition

2.       Learning how to use all the settings on most SLR cameras

The first step of learning visual composition techniques is not difficult but does take time. These techniques include things such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, simplicity, etc. They are simple tips for improving the way you take a photo.

Most people new to photography just see an interesting scene and take the shot. They don’t take the time to carefully look at what image is in the viewfinder of the camera. By taking more time and carefully arranging the scene in your photo you end up with a nicer image.

The way to improve your compositions is to learn a few tips (like leading lines) and go out and take hundreds of pictures with that specific tip. You’ll notice that the first photos were very basic uses of the technique.

Many times they are quite ugly as well. When you look at the more recent photos you’ll notice that the photos are much more clean and may even use the technique in unique, less “generic” ways. After this, you use a new technique and maybe even fuse the previous ones you learned together.

When you teach yourself photography it is very important to become familiar with the buttons and controls of an SLR camera. If you have a regular automatic camera I highly recommend getting an SLR. Even if it an old school film SLR camera it will help you learn photography much quicker.

The most important controls you need to know deal with exposure. They include the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. These all affect the way that light is let into your camera. Improper use of these (or letting the camera automatically select numbers for these) often leads to under or over exposed shots.

These controls are not difficult to learn. If you understand how to use them then you should have no problem taking properly exposed images. Once you learn this, the next step is to begin getting creative with your exposures. You can make a normal scene over exposed and add much more interest. For example, if you’re taking a shot of trees in the forest you can slightly over-expose the image to make the trees “pop” and look heavenly as the sky and surrounding background will be much brighter and create a halo effect on the trees.