Photography has been one of those elusive hobbies for me. You know?
It’s one of those things that I’ve always wanted to do but never really invested the time and money needed to really get off the ground.
When I was laid off from my job in July 2014, I was suddenly afforded the luxury of time and funding to invest in a DSLR camera. Before I ordered a camera, I consulted with a couple of people who have photography experience and also watched several reviews and tutorials on YouTube.
I found YouTube to be a great resource for photography tutorials Some of my favorites are:
Tony Northrup YouTube Channel:
- This guy produces great quality videos. Some are advanced but he has some great beginner videos as well. In most of his videos he promotes his e-book, so you just have to put up with a little bit of that, but otherwise he’s really great at explaining things.
- This guy is one of my favorites. He has tons of how-to videos for shooting in various situations. In many cases he is using off-camera flash lighting, which you may want to explore at a later time. Many of his videos focus on shooting models and people.
- This channel had some good tutorials but I grew weary of Kai’s sarcasm.
- Jared has some really great videos and I still go to the channel periodically to pick up some pointers. He tends to be a little too wordy at times so if you can bear with the fro and the banter, you’ll likely enjoy the material as well.
Though I invested countless hours in these and other tutorials, the only real way to learn is to get out there and start shooting. I eventually settled on a Nikon D3300 which is a nice entry level DSLR camera and placed my order in September 2014.
Like most beginner photographers, I used the automatic settings exclusively. After a while I became more comfortable with shooting in Manual mode (controlling all of the exposure settings) and in RAW format (the native format of the camera which gives you more options when editing the photos).
Here are some of my early shots:
Needless to say, it has been an extreme joy to explore the visual art of photography and I am happy I made the investment.
Stay tuned for more posts in the future about my journey. In the meantime, be sure to visit any of my photography pages:
Until next time friends!
Charles