Hello , 

First, a bit of a cleanup is in order. 

In yesterday's email to you, titled "Learning and Knowing Aren't Enough," I neglected to include a link to a related article on my website. 

So, here it is. https://samdamico.com/we-learn-photography-as-we-do-photography/ 

Your photography food for thought follows.  

The white balance settings on our digital cameras are similar to the color balance of films. 

The difference is that we can change a setting on our digital camera instead of changing film or adding a filter to our lens if we seek color correctness. 

Yup. A digital camera, in some ways, makes things easier. 

The camera manufacturers set the white balance settings on most of our digital cameras to automatic by default. 

And most of the time, if we're looking for "color correctness," we ignore the white balance settings. 

However, when we ignore the white balance settings, we overlook a camera setting that can open up a new area of compositional possibilities.

Color is ubiquitous and affects us physically and emotionally. 

And we can thoughtfully and intentionally incorporate color theory and color psychology into our work. 

Color theory and color psychology deal with how color non-verbally creates moods, conveys information, and influences our choices.

So, we can see the importance of being thoughtful and intentional about using color in our work. 

While appropriate in many cases, color correctness may not be our best choice regarding personal expression. So, when appropriate losing our white balance is a good thing.

If we've ignored the white balance setting on our camera, we've missed expanding our compositional tools. 

And the more tools we use, the more versatile and creative we are.

So, if you've been ignoring your white balance, pick up your camera and learn how to change the white balance settings on your camera. 

Beyond automatic, you'll probably see the following settings:

•  Shade
• Cloudy
• Flash
• Daylight
• Fluorescent
• Incandescent or Tungsten

Those settings describe the color temperatures of various transmitting light sources and can be used to achieve color correctness or color shifts from red to blue.

A good way to start to play with the effects of white balance is to work in a consistent transmitting light source, compose a picture that includes something white, and then make a series of pictures with each image using a different white balance setting.

The first place to look for the color shift is the white thing in your picture, so make sure the white thing is played prominently in the photograph. 

There are ways to learn photography with me listed below.