“11 Stages That Every Photographer Goes Through” plus 1 more: Digital Photography School |  |
| 11 Stages That Every Photographer Goes Through Posted: 24 Mar 2016 11:00 AM PDT Get 25% OFF James’ ebooks: Essentials of Street Photography & Street Photography Conversations eBook Bundle now for a limited time only at Snapndeals.  How the $*#$ do I use this thing!!?! While I hope you take this article as tongue and cheek, and realize that a decent amount of this is talking to my early self – the reality is that there is a pretty consistent learning curve that many photographers go through. While hopefully your learning curve will not be this extreme, I think that understanding it will help you to have as much fun as possible progressing through the photography learning process. Here is my belief about the typical progression, or the 11 stages a photographer goes through: 1. Auto mode and how the $@&# do I use this thing!?The camera sits like a brick for a couple months, except for when you switch it to auto mode to photograph your cat, or patio furniture in the snow. You take 12 self portraits with a hat on one day, staring at yourself in the bathroom. 12 years later, you still use this self portrait. The reality is that you have heard about 5000 photography terms that you think you need to know, and it’s overwhelming. You just don’t know where to start. While there are only five or six things that you really need to learn at this point to get started, nobody tells you that. We will cover these things in a bit. 2. GEARRRRRR Do you SEE how sharp those nose hairs are??! When you think about your camera, your heart starts racing, your blood pressure rises, your hands get clammy, and you start sweating. Your camera system begins to morph into this awesomeness of sheer technology and power, that it was always destined to become. Four lenses, five filters, a tripod that you tell everyone about that doesn’t actually work that well, a remote shutter release, a new camera strap, a flash unit, Lightroom, Photoshop, Silver Efex, a new monitor, a hard drive, a Wacom tablet, an ugly camera backpack where your gear can survive under water for 10 minutes, a light painting kit, 5,000 forum views, an HDR tutorial, and photo collages, oh my! Occasionally, you just take your camera out to stare at it for awhile before your wife catches you, then you get on the internet to read fondly about its dynamic range, yet you have only taken your camera out into the world a couple of times. Bonus points if you gave your wife a black eye due to your tripod hanging off your huge ugly backpack, on the way to catch a flight to an extended family vacation. 3. OMG, everything looks so awesome! Bikes! Macro, landscape, street photography, portraits, travel, wildlife, architecture, live music, sports, fashion, medical imagery and dental photography – it’s all so awesome! Turn the saturation up to 20 baby! The world is my oyster. Colors, sunsets, old houses, doors, cobblestone, flowers, pots, bikes – definitely bikes! 4. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, and focal lengthsShoot, I haven’t actually opened the camera manual yet. This is also known as the real step one. There are only six things that a photographer needs to learn at the very beginning (besides light, which we will cover later). You now engulf yourself in every type of training possible, and read, read, read. Keep in mind that the best photographers never stop doing this. You realize that different established photographers tell you completely different ideas about what to do, and it’s confusing. That’s actually a good thing. There are many different ways to get to the same endpoint with a camera. 5. I’m the best photographer ever“My knowledge of photography is unparalleled. Everyone else sucks. My neck muscles are huge because of the sheer weight of my awesomeness (and my camera bag with unnecessary equipment). I am ART. Everything is ART.” This is a trap that can happen to some photographers. Needless to say, a small contingent get stuck on this step for longer than they should, but everyone else usually passes on to the next step a year or two later, which is… 6. OMG, everything sucks and I suck“I hate it all. I’m the worst photographer in the world. I’ve tried everything and I can’t take a good image. I can’t look at another flower ever again. I hate sunsets. I hate bunnies. I hate children. I hate cookies. I am a sad, depressed photographer.” This is the point when you get past the basics, and realizes how difficult photography really can be. It goes way beyond settings. Creating interesting photography is difficult. 7. Starting to see the light Light! Eureka! Photography is just painting with light. Did you know, it’s all about the light? Warm light, cool light, colored light, harsh and shadowy light, indoor and artificial light. This step is so important, and learning about light sounds simple, but it actually takes most people a long time to start to see light well. It’s shocking how long it can take sometimes, because photographers tend to focus on so many other things, and particularly equipment at first. When learning to use your camera, light is the number one factor that goes into the equation. It should be the first thing that you learn before you even think about how to set up your cameras. 8. Traveling light“Screw all that equipment. You know, photographers are too obsessed with equipment. One camera, one prime lens, a small (beautiful) bag, and a notebook that I’m never going to write in – that’s all I need. Life is beautiful. I can feel life and the wind in my hair.” An optional black and white period often takes place here, and the gear fetish morphs into a camera bag fetish, but in reality this is an important step. For most types of photography, you just did not need all that equipment. Simple can be a lot better, more often than not. 9. Studying other photographers“Wow, there were a lot of wonderful photographers throughout history, in all types of subject matter and all around the world. There are a lot of great photographers shooting now and doing it much better than I am!” You spend time in bookstores and on the internet researching. You start building your photo book collection. This is usually a big turning point for photographers in their education. This can be both inspiring and humbling. 10. Focus, consistency, and subject matterBy this point, you have photographed enough where you really have put in the hours, and are starting to improve significantly. While it’s so important to put in the hours to study photography and photographers, nothing beats time spent photographing. You become more intuitive with the camera, to the point where you start forgetting it’s there. Your subject matter, and the look of your photos, begin to become more consistent. You start to find specific content, and places that you like photographing the most. You start creating a portfolio with images that all fit together. It’s no longer as much about the individual photograph, but about collections and sequences of photographs. You start to realize that you can create a narrative this way, that goes beyond what the individual image can often achieve. 11. Zen and a subtle feeling of inadequacyWhile the other steps might take five to 10 years to progress through, this one can stick around for the rest of your photography life. There are so many incredible photographers out there doing powerful work, it can be intimidating. It feels like there is always someone out there who knows more about a subject than you. Each day you come across another fantastic body of work, from someone you have never heard of. But you have your own interests and unique point of view, and realizing this is what sets you apart. It’s not just about your knowledge of photography, but about the subject matter and perspective. This is where you can gain true satisfaction from photography, and for just being a small part of all of this. There is a worldwide community of people interested in the same things as you are, but all doing it in slightly different ways. It is powerful and inspiring. Bonus stage 12 – going to CubaThis is the final step of any photographer’s life progress. Cuba is so hot right now. I’m not going to lie, I really do want to go to Cuba very badly, although I heard it was so much better two years ago. Can you relate to these stages of your photography journey? What stage do you most identify with right now? Have you been through others? Please share in the comments below. Get 25% OFF James’ ebooks: Essentials of Street Photography & Street Photography Conversations eBook Bundle now for a limited time only at Snapndeals. The post 11 Stages That Every Photographer Goes Through by James Maher appeared first on Digital Photography School.      |
| Are You Obsessed with Shooting Wide Apertures – Here’s Why You Might Want to Hold Back Posted: 24 Mar 2016 06:00 AM PDT There’s a scene in the original Jurassic Park movie, that almost perfectly describes one lesson I have learned when documenting the world around me with my camera. In this scene Dr. Ian Malcolm, a brilliant mathematician who is visiting the prehistoric park, expresses severe reservations about the idea of resurrecting long-extinct species during a conversation with John Hammond, the director of the park. Hammond is gleefully explaining the incredible genetic breakthroughs that his scientists have achieved. “Our scientists have done things which nobody’s ever done before.” Incredulous, Malcolm responds with equal fervor and says, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The same holds true for camera lenses. Just because you can shoot wide open at f/1.4 or f/1.8, doesn’t mean you should. When I first got into serious photography work, I was amazed at the power and light-gathering ability of my 50mm f/1.8 lens. It opened up a whole new world of photographic possibilities, that I continue to explore today, and was capable of producing incredible images, even on my humble little Nikon D200. Unfortunately, like the scientists in Jurassic Park, I did not spend years in the trenches learning my trade and honing my skills in order to learn how to truly utilize the power of such wide apertures, and went through a phase where I shot everything wide open because of things like low light photos, depth of field, and of course bokeh. Always with the bokeh. Now it’s important to note that I don’t regret any of those early lessons but I do want to offer youa few simple things I’ve learned over the years, and a couple reasons why you might want to reign things in a bit and not shoot wide open with that fancy prime or ultrafast zoom lens just yet. 1. Depth of field can be way too shallowI shoot most of my photos with three prime lenses: a 35mm f/1.8, a 50mm f/1.8, and my favorite, an 85mm f/1.8, that I call my supermodel lens. (Seriously, you could just about point that lens at a moldy old scarecrow, and get a portrait worthy of Vogue magazine.) Each of these lenses has its own set of unique advantages and limitations, but as you can probably already tell, the one thing they all have in common is a super wide maximum aperture. Certainly there are plenty of lenses available with even bigger apertures, like the Nikon 58mm f/1.4 or Canon 85mm f/1.2, but when push comes to shove an f/1.8, or even f/2.8 lens, is no slouch either. Wielding one of these ultra-wide beasts can be a bit like riding a tyrannosaurus rex, in that the sheer amount of power at your disposal is kind of insane. But, one advantage of fast primes like this, an ultra-shallow depth of field, can also be somewhat of a curse if not used properly. I’m not going to lie, it’s a ton of fun to shoot things with your lens wide open but it took me a while to learn, that just like the scientists of Jurassic Park, maybe I should have held back a bit. This portrait of a college student is yet another time in which I had no good reason to shoot wide open, but did anyway, and the result was a photo that simply could not be used. Due to the wide f/1.8 aperture, and my proximity to the subject, it left me with a depth of field consisting of just a few centimeters. Her left eye (on the right side of the photo) is perfectly in focus while the other side of her face is blurry, and the result is a strange-looking picture that I had to discard. Thankfully, I quickly realized my mistake and got some other perfectly usable images by shooting at f/2.8 and f/4. But, this was one of those situations in which I thought it would be super cool to get the way awesome background blur of an f/1.8 aperture, but did not realize how I nearly destroyed the portrait in the process.  85mm, f/1.8, 1/750 second, ISO 400 Here’s another example from when I first got my 50mm lens, and thought it was so cool to go around shooting all my pictures at f/1.8 – because my warped sense of logic told me that no depth of field could ever be too thin. As a result this picture of some crocuses contains an ugly streak across the center where one flower and a lot of dead grass is in focus while the rest of the image is a blurry mess. Shooting at a smaller aperture would have given me a smooth transition between in-focus and out-of-focus areas and a much more pleasing image overall.  50mm, f/1.8, 1/500 second, ISO 400 2. Bokeh and background blur can get out of handThis is a bit subjective, and open to interpretation on the part of both the photographer and the viewer, but over the years I have found that shooting at the widest possible aperture in order to get the most possible bokeh, or background blur, things can go from artistic and interesting, to messy and incomprehensible very quickly. Bokeh is nice and can certainly be used to add an artistic flair to an image, but when overused, it can overpower the subject and ruin the picture. The following photo of a purple flower sticking up from a bed of grass shows this phenomenon in action. The flowers are so removed from the background it’s almost like they are hovering in midair, and the effect is somewhat disconcerting, and borders on upsetting. Blowing out the background so much has removed any sense of place and context for the subject, and what’s left is a green and purple mess, that is neither artistically interesting, nor aesthetically pleasing. 3. Vignetting, chromatic aberration, and other optical odditiesBefore I say too much on this subject perhaps I need to add a bit of a preface. Less expensive lenses can behave strangely when you shoot with them wide open, but more expensive glass is usually much better at this sort of thing. With that disclaimer out of the way, it’s important to understand some of the optical abnormalities such as vignetting, chromatic aberration, and softness, that often show up when your lens is opened up as far as it will go. Vignetting is when the edges of your image look a bit darker than the rest of the picture, due to how light is manipulated inside your lens before it hits the image sensor inside your camera. It’s not too big of a problem on cameras with smaller sensors like APS-C or micro four thirds models, but it is certainly there, and even more so on full frame cameras.  Vignetting can be a major issue when shooting wide open. Notice how the centers of both images are equally exposed but the corners are much darker at f/1.8. If you shoot in RAW, you can use Lightroom, Photoshop, or other such applications to mitigate most of the effects of vignetting if you want. Of course another solution is to use a smaller aperture, which tends to eliminate most vignetting altogether. Vignetting is not always a dealbreaker, and many photographers, myself included, actually prefer the subtle effects of a well-used vignette. You may find that you fall into this camp, in which case go right ahead and shoot at f/1.8 or f/1.4 to your heart’s content. The other optical abnormality that often rears its ugly head at wide apertures is chromatic aberration, which might be a much bigger problem if you are not ready for it. This usually manifests itself as purple or green outlines or fringes, around places in your pictures with harsh contrast between dark and light. For example the image below was shot at f/1.8, and upon first glance, looks perfectly usable.  50mm, f/1.8, 1/3000 second, ISO 100. It looks Okay on first inspection, but all is not well up close. Take a closer look and you will notice a big problem around the edges of most of the dry stalks of grass. Ugly green halos show up all over the place, and this is a direct result of shooting wide open, due to how the incoming light is transformed by the lens on its way to the camera. Here’s a 100% crop of the image next to the exact same picture shot at f/8.  Green outlines abound on the left side while stopping down to f/8 eliminates them entirely. This optical imperfection can often be mitigated somewhat in Lightroom, by using its: Remove Chromatic Aberration option in the Develop panel. But even then the results are not ideal, and you will often be left with images that still show some green or purple artifacts, or lose a bit of color from other parts of your picture. Rather than mess around with fixing these issues in post-production, I like to just avoid it from the start and shoot at a slightly smaller aperture. It usually fixes the problem, and still leaves me with the same overall composition I would have had with a wider aperture. The last weird characteristic of most lenses at their widest apertures might not be that big of a problem unless you are painstaking examining your pictures on a per-pixel basis, but it’s something you should know about nonetheless. Almost all lenses are a bit softer when used at their widest apertures, which can result in pictures that are not quite what you want. The picture below was shot at f/1.8 and looks decent upon first glance, but a closer inspection reveals a very different story.  50mm, f/1.8, 1/125 second, ISO 100. Seems decent but once again a closer look reveals a much different story. Zooming in on the exact center of the image, the point at which I locked focus, shows two very different pictures when this is put next to the very same picture shot at f/8.  Focus was locked precisely on the letter “K” and yet the image on the left, shot at the widest aperture on my lens, is much less sharp. Once again this sharpness problem can be corrected to some degree in post-production, but my ideal solution is to avoid shooting at f/1.8 unless I specifically need the light-gathering ability, background blur, or other effects that such a wide aperture offers. Photography is all about tradeoffs, and while closing down the aperture on my lens resulted in a picture that was sharper, it also gave me an image that had much wider depth of field, which made the overall composition less pleasing. 4. Use wide apertures sparingly to maximize their impactThe Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.” This nugget of wisdom is applicable not only to life in general, but also speaks volumes about how to approach photography. I like to treat the widest aperture on my lenses like flooring the gas pedal on my car. It’s fun, but if I went around driving full speed everywhere I went, it would quickly lose its appeal. (Though in my 1998 Toyota sedan I would probably lose a race to a skateboarder, but you get the point.) Your lenses have wide apertures for a reason and they are meant to be used to get good images, particularly if you are aware of some of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of using them like this. If you like shooting wide open, and don’t mind some of the potential tradeoffs like a bit of vignetting and chromatic aberration, then go for it! However, my own personal rule of thumb is to only use f/1.8 when I really need it, otherwise the creamy backgrounds and bokeh balls start to lose a bit of their luster. When I’m doing a portrait session I keep f/1.8 in my back pocket for when I really need it, otherwise I shoot most pics at f/2.8, f/4, or smaller.  I took most photos of this couple at smaller apertures, which made this one at f/1.8 stand out among the rest. After hearing this list of reasons to hold back a bit when shooting wide open, I almost feel like I should write a similar article about the benefits of taking photos at the largest aperture possible. I don’t want to give the impression that you should never use your equipment to the fullest of its capabilities, just that there are a few things to know before you go around taking all your pictures at the widest possible aperture your lenses can use. You might end up with a few problems, just like the ill-fated scientists of Jurassic Park, but hopefully yours won’t be quite as lethal, and along the way you could very well manage to take some incredible photos too. I’d like to know what your thoughts are on all of this, and if you have any favorite shots taken at not-quite-wide apertures, please post them in the comments below! The post Are You Obsessed with Shooting Wide Apertures – Here’s Why You Might Want to Hold Back by Simon Ringsmuth appeared first on Digital Photography School.    |
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