After taking a few hundred photos in Iceland with my new camera, the Canon Digital Rebel XTI, it's time to invest some time in to really figuring out how to take decent photos with it. Because vacation really is a bad time to learn to use a new piece of documenting equipment, I mostly just took the same photo with different settings and uploaded the best one. Not a secret or anything, as I know that even great photographers hedge their bets sometimes, but I'd like to be able to know, if not instinctively then at least through practice which settings are appropriate for the situations I'll find myself taking my camera to. Looking at the camera settings for photos people take, by clicking the "More properties" link in Flickr (for example, the cool long exposures taken from Vancouver's SkyTrain: 1, 2, 3, 4) and attempting to duplicate the shot should help me learn too. These include planespotting at Vancouver International Airport, SkyTrain (photo)walks, and live events such as concerts and parades. Can you think of anything else? Maybe I should get more active on Now Public—so that people can assign me to cover something—and Urban Vancouver and give citizen journalism some serious effort.
(I'm thinking that if I bring a big enough lens, parade organizers will think I'm media and won't ask me to stop walking in the middle of the parade route. Concerts I'm not so sure about: do I need to ask the venue for permission? Or can I just walk in without fear of camera forfeiture?)
On another note, I find it difficult to take photos of strangers because I need to get over the idea, especially in a public setting, that I'm taking photos without someone's permission. The photographers I watch in Flickr have the ability to not care what people think, or at least understand that the other person knows that the photographer takes the photo because the photographer makes no attempt to hide it.
Comments
From my experience with my itty consumer digital camera, larger acts at bigger venues will loudly object to big cameras to the point of confiscation, since there is the occasional photographer who takes these pictures then attempts to make a tidy profit by selling them on eBay.Not so sure about smaller acts. Also, if you have your camera set so that it pops up the flash when trying to take a picture at a darker concert, you will be immediately outed as an amateur.
As to the learning, it's an interesting question. I'm guessing that the f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO settings meant and do still mean a lot for photographers who were weaned on film than digital at first blush. The idea that you're "painting with light" may not be as apparent as when it was all smelly chemicals. However, white balance was a setting those photographers didn't do anything with - I'm guessing all those kinds of effects would have had to have been done in the darkroom, mayhaps? So maybe it's a little bit of old -- composition, colour, etc. -- with some new.
But I do like the idea of being able to look at what other photographers do on Flickr - learning by imitation and all that. I like the long exposures too.
Maybe I should hook you up with Katie's father. He's taken a few photography classes in the last few years and maybe he'd be up for a photowalk with you.