[How to take a photograph] Introduction

[How to take a photograph] Introduction

May 26, 2011 · by Satakieli · in , ,

I haven’t always taken photographs; I suppose that goes without saying. But I have been taking photographs on and off since I was a teen and photography has become such a hugely important part of my life. Whether I end up using it or not, I tend to carry my camera almost everywhere with me despite the extra weight it adds.

I truly enjoy being able to capture little moments of our everyday – a shy smile, a vase of flowers on a window ledge, food to be enjoyed, favourite pastimes. Little things that I’d like to be able to remember, or share with family who live so far away. While I’m not as technically proficient as say, someone who takes photographs professionally, I feel as though being able to exercise myself creatively has had benefit on my whole person in ways that I didn’t expect. The attention to detail and appreciation of things like composition, colour and light have spilled out from the edges of the frame and continue to light up even the most mundane of days.

The camera I use is a Nikon D3000. It’s not my first digital SLR or even my first SLR, but we bought it about a year and a half ago, mostly based on the fact that it’s one of the cheapest DSLR models available. I used the kit lens for about 10 months but I now have several lenses for it, Nikkor 50mm 1.4, Nikkor 17-35mm 2.8, Nikkor 28-105mm Macro 3.5-4.5 and Nikkor 14mm 2.8 but I probably use the 50mm the most at the moment. I also have some filters, reflectors and a tripod at my disposal. I’m not going to talk much about equipment, aside from listing it here for reference and because people always ask, but I don’t think it matters too much for the purposes of this series.

I’m not going to talk too much about the technical aspects of taking a photograph either – exposure, aperture, ISO. I will, however, post the settings with all of the photographs I use in each post, at the end of each post, for reference. Although I wont be covering them, I do strongly suggest you take the time to learn these things. There’s no getting around it, even if you don’t have a manual mode on your camera it is always good to have at least a basic understanding of the way a photograph is taken. There are some fabulous resources available online if this is something that you’d like to learn about and I’ve collected a few of them together here in no particular order -

31 Days to a Better Photo by Darcy of My 3 Boybarians
Digital Photography School
SLR Lounge
Pioneer Woman Photography
I Heart Faces
Love That Shot (A website with photography tips and also a free forum)
Clickinmoms (A Subscriber Only forum which has an absolute wealth of information, well worth the subscription fee. They also have tips and tutorials for free on their blog)

There are of course a whole host more websites and blogs that deal with learning how to use a camera, these are just the few that came to mind. If you have a blog or blog post that deals with this sort of thing then please leave me a comment and I can add it to the list!

And you can of course feel free to ask me any questions, either in the comments or via my direct contact form.

Here are some buttons for you to use on your blog if you would like, I would love for you to share these. They link directly to the index page that I have set up for the series. There’s obviously not much there at the moment but it will flesh out over the next few weeks! I’m going to be posting for the series every Thursday.

How to Take a Photograph   How to Take a Photograph

 

So for today, Why do you like to take Photographs? Let me know in the comments!

 

Photo Settings:

1. [Nikkor 50mm 1.4] 1/320 f/3.2 200ISO [Edited in Adobe Lightroom 3]
2. [Nikkor 50mm 1.4] 1/2500 f/1.6 200ISO [Edited in Adobe Lightroom 3]
3. [Nikkor 50mm 1.4] 1/400 f/3.2 200ISO [Edited in Adobe Lightroom 3]

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