My journey into photography: a beginner’s point of view (with photos)
I always had some kind of hobby, something to make me forget about time: watching tv, binge watching some series, computer games or whatever. But as I got older those seemed a waste of time.
Reading is a good hobby. When I am reading a book, specially one I like, I am automatically dragged in to it. The characters, the story, the places, everything. But somehow I feel weird just sitting in the couch with a book doing nothing, I feel like I’m not being productive. So a few months ago I decided to learn about photography. I always loved the idea of freezing the perfect moment and revisit it as many times as I wanted. As the adage say “A picture is worth a thousand words”.
At the beginning I only had my smartphone and I wanted to try my non existing skills so the first thing I did was getting out of the auto mode…..at night…I started playing with the options and the result was awesome….Except that it wasn’t!!!
As you can see I was trying to play with the shutter speed … without a tripod…with a smartphone…so yeah…that was the result. Pretty great, right??? No, of course not! The first one is bad in so many levels, but the second one was just dumb. I wasn’t even thinking… All things considered I’m almost proud of the third one.
That night me and my boyfriend went out for a walk and I tried something a little bit more artistic.
The result wasn’t perfect…at all… but I actually like this picture….It has some reflection, the lights in the back and the moon…I was proud! So we decided I could try an online course on photography.
I went on Udemy and searched for photography courses. I find one that seemed really cool. It was really cheap, about 19€, and it’s like photography 101. For someone who doesn’t know anything about photography or cameras it’s really cool. They teach you all the basics you absolutely need to know: f stop, shutter speed, ISO, exposing properly, how a camera works, lenses and so on…I was really enjoying taking the course. I was taking pictures of everything and I mean…everything.
But in a while I started to feel like my phone wasn’t enough. I wanted to try night photography, low light photography, long exposure, all that stuff where a smartphone falls short. Our smartphones are great for a well lit space but when you try some of those the picture starts getting noise. Also, the smartphone doesn’t allow to change the aperture and all the zoom it does is digital. So I started to get a little discouraged and I stop doing the classes. Nonetheless, I kept taking pictures. Some are good, some are bad, trying to learn something new every time.
During this process I also found out about YouPic. A website where you can upload your photos and have feedback from other photographers, professional and amateur. It kept me going, I was getting some nice feedback, sometimes short on constructive criticism which is bad for growing up but it is a really nice platform.
Recently I resumed the course and I’m actually enjoying it again. I’m really excited because I just bought a beginner camera, I’m expecting to learn and improve a lot. For now I’m embracing the hobby, taking lots of pictures, annoying my boyfriend with it and learning a lot.
My point is if you like photography don’t quit! Take as many pictures as you can, don’t be afraid of new angles and points of view. If and when you feel ready, try changing from phone photography to an actual camera. If nothing else you have a great time.
At least that worked for me!
Magda
