pangzzz said:
Feeling very down and out after helping a friend out at his recent photoshoot(i was 2nd photographer). Pics didnt turn out to be great(but neither were they that bad).
Wondering how long did you guys took to sorta "learn the ropes" of photography...i've been shooting for abt 2 yrs now...yet i feel so embarrassed at my level of photography, cos sometimes the shots really come out crappy.
Haiz. showed the pics to his friends(the models) and they just kept very quiet, could feel that they didnt think much of my pics. haiz.
will keep on trying. :embrass:
I've been shooting for about 18 years. Started with manual film cameras and learnt exposure the hard way before progressing to composition, colour processing and then got on the digital bandwagon 3 years back. You can say I'm lucky because my dad taught me a lot of things. (Get to share equipment also.. hehehe.)
The answer is to think before you shoot. Film photography is expensive and so will force you to stop, compose, find a good angle and think about the exposure before you release the shutter. After a few rolls of bad results, you will learn how the camera meters and how to use the meter to your advantage, that's just the metering part. This is the technical part, so if you haven't gotten this right, get it right first before proceeding to the art part.
For the composition part, first you might want to emulate people first, develop an eye for composition. It takes a lot of exposure and so it's good to expose yourself to many photos, good ones and bad. See what pleases you, what doesn't and why (<-very important to know why).
Then for the practical part, start with a good prime wide angle lens (eg, 35mm for 135 film or 24mm for APS-C size digital). Start with shooting a bit more and then crop later to get your final composition. After this practise, you will probably start to develop an eye for composition. Once you have developed that, then should you 'upgrade' (downgrade?) to zoom lenses. Still, better to shoot a bit more and crop later. It is good to have some friends to discuss composition and share ideas, with digital, it is very easy to try things out. Go to a location and try to create the pictures you have in mind and see where you fall short and why, what you could have done better.
After composition, it's all about lighting. How you would want your subject to be illuminated, natural? artificial? the angle? etc. Many great landscape pictures comes because of patience, mostly shot during the golden 'hour', dawn and dusk. (In singapore, this golden 'hour' lasts for only about 5 minutes). During this period, the lighting can change drastically and will be quite spectacular, if you missed the moment you want, probably just a few seconds, you'll have to wait another day.
End of the day, it's all about exposing yourself more to photographic works, practise more and you will get there. I'm still learning because each day we see things a little differently each time and we will always find something new in the same things we see everyday.
