Educate yourself

Season Greetings to everyone,

I know that I've been a bit lame with the blog lately but running around from one place to another doing assignments and not having too much time for anything else been putting this blog a little bit behind.

It's something that I just can't avoid and and has you may all know time is money.

I just want to wish you all a Great Season Greeting to you and all yours and that the nest year may bring you all that you have deserved and wish for.

It's never too late!!!

Today's post it's all about education. I've decided to put out a couple of pages that I've been following regularly with some great teaching techniques that I'm certain it will help you learn and evolve.

Starting is shutha project where you can find out for example what is stock photography, types of markets, stock photo licensing,  book publishing, publishing rights, fine art prints, decorative and commercial prints, editorial assignments, commercial assignments, selling photographs, selling video and a lot of more interesting information.

You also have some Free courses from Business, Image Workflow, Digital Imaging and Multimedia.

Who is behind Shutha?

Shutha is one of the outputs of the Twenty Ten: African media on the road to twenty ten (and beyond) project. The project is a partnership between World Press Photo, Freevoice (now rebranded as Free Press Unlimited), Africa Media Online and lokaalmondiaal and is funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Shutha benefits from this funding.

Next one is dpBestFlow.org and this is a terrific place to get some very good teaching and resources from Workflow to est Practices.

What is dpBestflow.org?

dpBestflow.org is a rich web resource which includes a series of on-line educational seminars, software & hardware solutions, workflow guides and book references, designed to match a wide variety of working styles.

Now, by accessing the web site, photographers and others in the visual arts community have real-world solutions for preserving the quality and integrity of digital images, proven best practices that have been shown to produce superior results, and guidelines for streamlined production workflows.

Then came project52, created by Don Giannatti, this is basically a page with lots of online assignments and Audio/Video critics about your sent photos that will help you develop your photography senses. You can also subscribe de Pro service and have a couple more benefits.

Real World Assignments

What does “real world assignments” mean? It means you will be given assignments that are similar in scope and diversity as any commercial photographer in a small town. It means authentic work that is exactly the kind you will get the day your shingle gets posted. We work hard to make assignments that both challenge the creative, and produce work that could end up in your portfolio.

Audio/Video Critiques

Each week we will review the previous assignment. There is a two week assignment completion schedule, so we are not critiquing the work of the previous weeks assignment, but that of two weeks prior. I am sure that will be less confusing as we get into the program.

And the last one I would like to mention is creativeLive that has been putting it's claws around the photography community with lots of great and fantastic online teaching video as well as some Live Feed with all the best photographers of our decade.

You can stream the courses has they are live on location or you can purchase, the full course, later on to view it as you please and how many times you would like.

The teachings run from photography, business, software, design and video&film with some the biggest in their business.

Just to name a few... Zack Arias, Sue Bryce, Vincent Laforet, Lesa Snider, Tamara Lackey and Ramit Sethi.

There are, of course, a lot of more places where you can get yourself educated and that is a good thing, just wanted to name a few that I found important to keep your eyes at.

Happy Season and see you in 2013. 

How to Educate Yourself about Photography

Photography is a very enjoyable and rewarding activity.

You can capture a moment in time and share it with others.
You can use your creative energy to produce something of emotion, beauty and inspiration. You can bring out the detail in subjects and events that you might not otherwise notice in real time.

Many people think that taking photographs is just a simple procedure of point and click. While this is obviously part of the process, it takes a lot more to take a quality photograph that is both moving and memorable.

Below are some guidelines for educating yourself about photography. If you are interested in pursuing a career in photography, find out more information on photography degree programs here.

Guidelines

• Learn Basic Visual Composition – For learning visual composition, this involves such principles as the "rule of thirds," using leading lines and simplicity. These techniques help improve the quality of your photo. It is important to not to just point and click at scenes of interest, but also take the time to look through the viewfinder in the camera and assess the scene. Put in the time and practice taking hundreds of photos using the basic visual techniques and compare the differences in the photos.

• Learn Camera Settings and Functions – As you are learning to take photographs, it is crucial to become familiar with all of the buttons and controls of a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. A SLR camera is preferable to an automatic camera as it will enable you learn photography more quickly and it gives you much more control in taking a shot. The controls on the camera that are especially important to know pertain to exposure. This includes shutter speed, aperture, and ISO (International Organization of Standardization). These controls affect how much light is let into the camera. Incorrect use of these features lead to overexposed or underexposed shots. Once you become more proficient with these controls, you can be more creative with your photography.

• Look at Professional Photographs – Closely observe the features in these photographs and compare them with your own. There are also many how "how-to" photography books that show examples of photographs and the techniques used to take them.

• Formal Education – While not all professional photographers are formally educated, it would be helpful to enroll in a photography degree program or take classes at an art school.

Sources

PhotoTechniques (2012)
Benjam (2012)