December 3rd, 2015 was the day I bought my first camera. I carefully chose one body and one lens: a Nikon D5300 and a 50mm prime lens. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned throughout my journey :
- I still don’t know how to compose. My good photos are a tiny fraction of all the pictures I take.
- You never know which one will be your next favorite picture. Sometimes you don’t realize that you are taking a really good shot, but you’ll definitely fall for it while editing.
- You’ll know what lens you want after you try to take a picture and you just can’t… I had my 50 prime for like 10 months, just recently bought a 55-200mm and an 18-55mm. I’m kind of just using these zoom for now, but it is because I want to get the feel for it.
- There is no such thing as a “non-processed pictures.” Every picture is processed, even the analog ones. Even your eyes process what they are seeing.
- I take less pictures than I should. Only 5K clicks so far… come one dude!
- I have no trouble deleting bad pictures.
- I hate when I edit my picture and it is the way I want, only to find out that Instagram has a filter that does exactly the same thing.
- You and the people you know will usually prefer different pictures. My favorites are rarely my most popular photos.
- One year and I still need to find a reliable way to backup my pictures. I use my laptop and an external hard drive for now, but I have plans to back up on the cloud as well.
- I’m motivated to get out. I struggle with the symptoms of depression and I stay in my house more often than I want to. Photography is making me slowly get out more. Last week I took a 15-hour bus trip to the Capital of my country. One of the reasons was the possibility of taking pictures there.
- I still don’t know how to direct people. I really want to start taking portraits and pictures of humans, but I don’t know what to do, or what to tell them to do.
- I’m the type of person that takes hundreds of pictures at slightly different angles and then I chose one that is best. I envy those who just go there, take one great shot, and done.
- Great light is key.
- The histogram is my best friend.
- I stopped chimping every picture I take after I learned how to use the light meter on my camera.
- Slightly under exposed is better than slightly over exposed. Go figure…
- People love bokeh.
- When I don’t have my camera with me, I’m thinking about the pictures I could be taking.
- I haven’t captured my master piece yet.
- Color correction is an incredibly important skill to have. I’m still learning, but I already think that it is way better than using effects and filters.
- That VSCO package I bought is useless now. I used to use it, but now I never touch it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good way to start, but you will become VSCO-independent before you know it.
- I often think that other people’s pictures are way better than mine, even when those people only shoot occasionally.
- I have no shame on trying to recreate a picture I like. I’m learning and I need to aggregate techniques. When I was in college studying chemistry we recreated old experiments all the time!
- /r/photography is one of the best places to learn. The “how to take a picture like that” post is rich.
- ISO, shutter speed and aperture opening were a mystery to me, but now I kind of understand them a little bit. Depending on the depth of field I want, I chose to change the shutter speed, or the ISO…
Sourse: petapixel.com
Interesting. I think felt much the same myself after my first year of serious shooting. It took a lot longer than that to reach a point where I felt I truly comfortable with what I was doing. Nonetheless, the learning continues even decades later. In truth, the learning will never end (until I die that is); that’s part of the fun.
Hey toots, how about you spend another 9 years shooting before you tell us what you learned.
Hey dickbag, how aboit you shut your whote mouth? ;D
I’m six and a half years in and plenty of portraiture, landscapes, street photography and many cameras later, only now do I feel ready to work on going professional. Also, my experience has told me that you don’t know what is around the corner in terms of what you might try and fall in love with shooting, so try everything at least once before settling too much.
My first year was. 1 month. Buy cheap dslr, 6 month rent sudio earn easy mony with shooting model portfolios. Then i try being normal photographer. But inspiration leave me. And now, after 8 years in photography i want start agin from basics. I have 4 DSLR but i dont want to touch them. So I spent $2 for smena8m plastic film camera with powerful lens, and $10 for 18 meters of fomapan film. Sorry for bad english. 🙂
Just like many X shooters, Fujifilm X100S is the camera that got me hooked. I’ve always had a point & shoot camera but only used it when I travelled. But this little Fuji completely changed me. I’m not a pro in any way but definitely not a same person I was an year ago
The photographic journey in the modern day is so lost to me. I’m not knocking it, but I relate to almost none of this. But, BUT, everyone’s journey is different, and that is great.
I started in August 2015, and I relate to a lot of these points. The one thing I would add to this list is that I don’t need to buy new. Buying used saves so much money. Maybe you can get the lenses you desire in the used market.