These emails come with the intent of helping you be a better photographer. 

And if you want more photography stuff to read, there's a place on the interwebs where past emails I wrote are stored. You'll find 'em in the "Newsletter Hub." 

Remember, I'd like to know what you want to know about photography. So, If you have any questions, ask by sending an email to me at sam@samdamico.com. And for what it's worth. When you send me an email, unless someone's lookin' over my shoulder, I'm the only one that sees it.

Hello, .

Yesterday, I worked with a photographer who wanted to learn about photography using the camera on their phone. It was a one-hour in-person private lesson in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC, and the lesson was a gift from his son in the form of a gift certificate.

As I usually do of everyone when I first meet them and start a lesson, I asked him to make a picture. 

He made a picture of the interior of the coffee shop/cafe where we met.

When I asked him what he thought of it, a self-critique, he felt the picture wasn't what he had hoped. I wondered why it wasn't working for him, and he explained the picture didn't "feel" like what he had experienced when he had seen what he saw.

I assured him that's the challenge we all face: how do we communicate the feeling we have when we see something to photograph in a photograph?

In other words, what is it specifically we're seeing, and how does it make us feel or think?

When he expressed his feelings about the coffee shop, I asked him what he saw that initiated that feeling.
 
When he described what he saw, he realized that although that visual element was in the picture, it was represented as an insignificant visual element of the image. 

And in doing that, he answered his question on how he could've improved the picture.

That's the value of a self-critique.

In terms of the context of the lesson, which was based on my Learn To Think Like A Photographer class, it was a framing and content issue. 

When he suggested he could blow up and crop the picture to how he thought it would work, I encouraged him to do so, and I agreed that the picture worked much better.

I also reminded him that when we enlarge a picture to crop it, the image quality suffers.

But the main thing is that the cropped image he showed me could have been made when he made the original picture.

He went on to say that this was a usual thing for him. He gets the impulse to make a picture because he sees something that gets his attention. 

Still, the image doesn't represent whatever he saw that initiated the impulse to make a picture.

In other words, he sees something he feels would make a good photograph, but his photograph doesn't represent the thoughts and feelings that made him make the picture.

Another way to put it is the picture doesn't communicate what he intended it to communicate.

The difficulty and the solution are recognizing the specific visual elements we're seeing that initiate the impulse to make a photograph, examining the thoughts and feelings surrounding what we're seeing, and then arranging the framing and content accordingly.

I refer to that part of the compositional process as "seeing and thinking"; we see something we think would make a good photograph, so we get out our camera to create a picture. 

But if we fail to realize how what we see makes us think and feel, we make an empty feeling photograph because it lacks the intent of the communication. 

When I asked him what he visually connected with and the thoughts and feelings surrounding that, he started describing a different image than the one he made. 

The point is that he could've made that picture. 

Still, he needed to realize what he was visually connecting with, his thoughts and feelings around it, and how to arrange it as content within the frame best and adjust his framing and content accordingly.

We also discussed how to use focusing and tonality to support his communication intent.

In that hour, we covered all aspects of an excellent compositional thought process and the camera operation required to achieve the composition we want; we covered seeing and thinking, framing and content, focusing, controlling tonality, and then critiquing.

Even though we used the camera on his phone, we covered the same thought process that applies to any camera we use, even more complex ones, like DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. 

Although I wouldn't recommend taking the Learn To Think Like A Photographer class with a DSLR or mirrorless camera, you can but at the minimum, you'll need to know how to work your camera in the aperture and shutter priority exposure modes and learn how to focus effectively.

But if you want to learn about camera operation, composition, and light, in that case, you'd be better off taking the Getting To Know Your Camera or Introduction To Photography classes because the Learn To Think Like A Photographer class is naturally baked into those classes.

You can study and practice photography with whatever camera you have.

The main thing is understanding the connection between skillful camera operation, composition, and the thoughts and feelings about the light you see.

When I asked the photographer what the most important thing he got out of the lesson was, his answer was "thinking of a photograph as a means of intentional communication."

That's it right there!

The camera is a tool we use to create intentional visual communication. And we need to learn to use the tool thoughtfully and effectively.  

The next series of the Introduction to Photography class starts in February.

And there are other scheduled group classes below. 

Smaller classes mean better learning, so no more than five participants and me are in each class. 

But smaller classes also mean spots fill up quicker. 

And remember, we learn and improve by doing, so practice making at least one picture daily. 

That's all for now; thanks for reading! 
Sam

I'll help you be a better photographer—study and practice photography with me. 

And what if the timing doesn't work for you in any of my scheduled group classes? If that's the case, let's schedule a one-time lesson or a series of in-person or online private instruction that covers the same things as my group classes. 

Ways to work with me are listed below.