Tips To Learn Photography From Scratch
Do you have an interest in photography?
Have you got that creative eye?
Have you just bought an expensive mobile phone with best camera configurations?
Is your camera lying under the cupboards for ages now?
Do you just love to be in nature’s lap and capture the unseen, untouched and unexplored world out there?
Its time to brush up your basic skills and get started. I am going to give you some quick pointers on how to start learning photography or if you are already doing it, just revise your basic skills and get the ball rolling.
Before I move ahead, just a little introduction about myself, I am a portrait / Fashion / Candid photographer and I do photography as it’s my passion to capture the wonderful moments.
I started photography way back when we were posted in Assam, to a place called Missamari which is nearly 200 km away from Guwahati, near the border of Arunachal Pradesh. the location was beautiful, clean, untouched and very green.
Everyday I used to see colourful birds and snow-capped mountains of Gori chen from my balcony.
My perception for photography is perfectly mentioned by Destin Sparks in his below mentioned lines
“Photography is the story I fail to put in words”
Some of the best places which one can see are not on tourist maps . It is true for NorthEast India. These places are so beautiful that they leave you speechless during such moments I picked up my camera and now I always relieve those moments whenever I see my album.
As I explored more, I felt the need to upgrade to a better camera so I bought a new DSLR.
Basic Skills Of Photographers
1) Creative
It goes without saying, you need to have that creative eye. All the photographers out there have that inbuilt quality and many times it just goes unnoticed or wasted because we never explored it.
2) Patient
Yes!!! You have to be very patient to take that perfect shot, that perfect sunrise or that perfect sky.
3) Technical skills
Required to understand the basic rules, settings etc.
Even if you are not from a technical background it can be easily adorned.
Types Of Photography
1) Portraits
2) Wildlife
3) Commercial
4) Landscape
You need to figure out what you like the maximum and than buy the camera as per your requirement.
Which Camera To Buy
If you already have a standard camera, you can just start now, no need to upgrade, just shoot and see how your pictures are coming.
Even picture from mobiles can come amazing. But if you have that extra interest in photography and can put in more effort for great pictures, you can buy Camera from various ranges.
1) Go to this link to compare various cameras and their features.
2) I won’t recommend a very high-end camera as it becomes difficult to understand all the settings and use of every button and functions of the camera at this stage. You might end up feeling frustrated and just leave the idea of photography then and there only. For e.g if I want to learn swimming I won’t start from the deep end straight away.
You can begin with something standard (not very basic) and then upgrade
3) There is a large community of people who want to sell off their cameras as people keep upgrading. One Good option is to buy from such people. It will save you lot of money. (Please do all the necessary checks before buying from a stranger).
4) Just start with what you have and analyse your requirement.
There is always an ongoing debate between Canon and Nikon on whose camera is best. I started with Nikon as I was getting all the features and it was within my budget (an important aspect of Photography).
I bought DLSR D5300 whose description can be found from following site .
It was fulfilling my requirements as I could take good portraits, landscape, birds pictures and overall I was satisfied with the output.
But let me tell you the most important aspect, more than any anything else is, learning the skills. Once you learn it Nobody can take away that learning from you.
It is like learning a bicycle, once you know how to ride a bicycle you cannot unlearn it ever.
Once you get the skills you can rock on with some basic cameras as well.
See some of my samples of photography here , just go to gallery.You can also go to my social media accounts here –
insta handle shwetasingh_photography
fb page shwetasingh_photography
Learn About Lighting
Photography is all about capturing the light and if you don’t understand the light source, you won’t be able to capture the image correctly ever. So, if you know how to make use of that light, understand from where the light is coming and how to create those dramatic pictures, your job is more than halfway done.
Know about the composition
There are many composition rules as to how to take a picture.
1) Rule Of Thirds
2) Leading Lines
3) Look Out For Symmetry
And many more.
Rule of one-thirds says – that in a frame the subject should be on the one-third part of it.
The pictures looks much more interesting as compared to an image in which the subject is in the middle of the frame.
But this rule has some exceptions when you are going to showing symmetry.
Exposure triangle
The exposure triangle will tell how much exposed your picture is, how dark or how bright it.
So there are three factors in pertaining to that
1) ISO tells me about the sensitivity of the camera towards light.
2) Aperture which tells me how much is the opening of the lens
3) Shutter speed
It’s a very in-depth topic I would cover that in my next write up.
Well, last but not the least you should just go out and take as many pictures as you want from different angles go and try .
Take a feedback from your friends, co-photographers and improve.
Every Picture Tells A Story Make Sure You Tell A Good One.
Stay Tuned For More
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