Thursday, February 25, 2010

I'm Really Starting to Get the Hang of This Stuff

Last night was class 5 of 8 of the photography class I'm taking together/separately with Mindy. It was our class field trip and we went to Kitchener City Hall to take night photography. Mindy tagged along, partly because her field trip was a bit of a disappointment and partly because I bribed her with sushi. Or maybe she bribed me with sushi. Either way, copious amounts of salmon sashimi were consumed.

I have to say I've learned a tremendous amount about taking pictures. The instructor is very hands-on (in a professional sense, get your mind out of the gutter!) and he's very approachable and helpful. Here are some of the valuable lessons I've learned over the last 5 weeks:

-Having the right lens will make people envy you, including your instructor;
-Night photography is hard;
-Sometimes metering doesn't work;
-Don't be afraid to crop;
-Take enough pictures of something and eventually you'll take one you like;
-Pictures look a lot different on a computer monitor than they do on the little screen on the back of the camera;
-Sometimes the pictures you thought would be awesome will suck, and sometimes the pictures you thought would suck will be awesome;
-Comparing your pictures to those taken by others will only cause you pain and grief.

My instructor asked us to decide on a theme for the pictures we would be taking on our field trip and then choose 2 or 3 of our favourites which best expressed that theme. I chose "Repetition" as my theme and I've posted my favourites on my photo blog here. Unfortunately I had difficulty narrowing my choice down to 3--go take a look and help me out, will ya?

2 comments:

Mindy said...

Mmmm... salmon sashimi... let's go again.

1strangefamily said...

Very cool! I really like the pics. Man, you and Mindy have me craving sushi now!