Hello ,
Sorry about missing yesterday's email. I had a deadline to meet for a proposal/estimate and wanted to get it to the requester
as soon as possible.
You might get another email today to make up for yesterdays missing email. And I should, for now, be back to my one-a-day format tomorrow.
And now, onto the photography stuff.
When discussing photography, I often use the phrase "making pictures"
instead of "taking pictures."
And if ya wanna know why, here it is.
When it comes to creating photographs, how we think about what we do drives how we do what we do.
The usual phrase used when we're creating pictures is "taking pictures."
What if we replaced the letter T in taking with the letter M?
What happens is that we redefine what we're doing.
In short, we go from taking pictures to making pictures.
This one-letter change of a word changes our entire perspective
of what we do.
Think about the word taking.
The Oxford Language Dictionary says it means the action or process of taking something.
And take means "lay hold of (something) with one's hands; reach for and hold."
And now think about the word making.
The same dictionary says it means "the process of making or producing something."
And make means "form (something) by putting parts together or combining substances; construct; create."
In our
case, we'd be the takers or makers of pictures.
And making pictures is what we do. We produce pictures.
So yes, we are makers/creators.
But what needs some looking at is how we make pictures.
In other words, how involved do we get in the creative process?
Do we work in fully automatic exposure mode or get more involved by working in aperture and shutter priority modes or, better yet, fully manual?
Either one of those is WAY better than fully automatic.
What about focusing modes and areas, or how about metering?
The quality of our making is directly related to our involvement in the creative process.
And to be more involved in the creative process, we need to get to know our camera and understand how camera operation relates to composition and
the light we photograph.
Photography seems more complicated than it is because of the technology involved in digital cameras.
But we don't need to know ALL the technology. We only need to know the parts that deal with exposure, focusing, and metering.
When we pare down
what we need to know to do the work we want, our camera use becomes more straightforward, understandable, and more practical.
And as a result, we become more involved as creators.
And being more involved in our creative process has nothing but a good effect on our work.
And remember, we learn and improve by doing, so practice making at least one picture today.
That’s all for now; thanks for reading!
Sam
Study and practice photography with me.
The group classes related to this email I'd recommend, depending on what camera used are: Learn
To Think Like A Photographer, Getting To Know Your Camera, and Introduction To Photography. You'll find 'em below.
And if the timing doesn't work for you in any of my scheduled group classes, we can schedule a one-time lesson or a series of in-person or online
one-on-one private instruction that cover the same things as any of my group classes.
