Beginning The Introductory Exercises

Today I visited Telford Town Park to take some photographs as part of the introductory exercises. I have only had a brief look through the shots and I think I have some usable material but I'll be able to have a good look tomorrow morning. I also aim to spend some time with one of the courses on Lynda.com dealing with Adobe Bridge and Camera RAW. I need to make sure from the get go that I am able to organise the images that I take and make any necessary minor adjustments. In the coming weeks I also aim to take some training in Adobe Photoshop in order to become more comfortable and fluent with the software as I only have a little experience with using it in the past.

Introductory Exercises

The first part of The Art of Photography involves a series of exercises dealing with focal length, focus, aperture and shutter speed. I have spent my time today reading through this introductory material, and developing ideas and a plan for each exercise so that I can go out shooting tomorrow.

I found the first exercise 'Focal length and angle of view' quite confusing at first. I already knew about crop factor and it's implications with regards to what you see through the viewfinder, but I wasn't entirely versed in the concept of a 'normal' focal length - that is, one that represents the scene through the viewfinder at the same size as what you see with your naked eye. The normal focal length for a camera with a crop factor of 1.5x (as with my D50) is 33mm (50mm - the normal focal length of a full frame camera - divided by the crop factor). However, the view in my viewfinder is not the same as with the naked eye until a focal length of around 55mm. My tutor offered an explanation on the forums:

It's a question of magnification. To fit the same scene on to the smaller sensor it has to be reduced more.

I/O=M

In order to reduce the image height I of the object height O to occupy the same proportion of the frame on the smaller sensor the magnification must change.

I still don't have an understanding, but I intend to do more reading and research on this topic while I continue with the course. With perseverance it should become clear soon enough!

Making A Start

Last Thursday I received my materials for this course, The Art of Photography. I have been taking photos as a hobbyist since about 2007 when I purchased my first DSLR camera, the Nikon D50. After quickly realising that a more expensive camera doesn't automatically make for better photos, I did some research, bought some quality books and began to teach myself exposure theory and how to manipulate the camera controls. I soon got the 'lens bug' and invented in several lenses that cover most focal ranges, as well as other necessary equipment such as a good tripod, and filters etc. Several times in the years since buying my camera there has been large swathes of time where I haven't touched my camera equipment, and it has literally gathered dust for months on end. This was due to hitting a mental block; not knowing how to progress my photography further and essentially just losing momentum.

When looking for a course that I could take to learn music composition, I came across the Open College of Arts website. As well as composition I noticed that photography courses were also available, and thought that such a course would be the perfect catalyst to kick start my photography again and drive it forward. It was at that time that I decided to combine the two broad subjects of photography and music and work towards a degree in the creative arts.

I had some months before I could begin the photography course, but the idea that I was going to be taking part in it was enough in itself to spur me to get out my camera again. In recent weeks I have done some more informal training, in the form of the extensive video tutorials available on Lynda.com, presented by Ben Long and Douglas Kirkland, as well as a DVD video tutorial on travel photography by Karl Taylor. This learning was invaluable to me in that it really tightened up some of the technical aspects of my photography, as well as getting me to think about the scene in ways that I previously hadn't, such as geometry of lines and shapes, negative space, texture and more.

I am really excited at this point to take everything I have taught myself thus far into a comprehensive and engaging course that will no doubt make me reevaluate everything I think I already know about photography and turn it upside down to create new images that I didn't know I could take.