How I Learned Photography: an Ongoing Journey

[ Editor's Note: In this day and age, this story is becoming more and more common. Nathan Johnson, an IT specialist in England, has always been interested in photography, and learning his story about how he became interested in photography while watching his transition into the photographer he is today is very inspiring. Today, he shares his story with you, and I hope you find it as motivating as I did. Enjoy! ]

I have always had cameras around me, I can’t even remember a time when we even had just one camera in the house, hence I grew an interest in photography. From the age of 7, when my dad was using one of his cameras I wanted to follow his example and take a few shots to see what I could do.  I must have done something right because at the age of 8 my dad gave me my very own camera, it was nothing special to today’s standards but it was special to me. At first I only took photographs of my family, but then I started to explore and would take pictures of bottles, animals and anything else I could find that interested me.

One of my discoveries was finding the macro mode on a camera when I got a little older, the small flower icon intrigued me as to what it meant or did, so I turned it on, and was fascinated by the focus I had closer up.  One of the first macro shots I ever took was the tennis ball we used to play fetch with our dog.  While it wasn’t my first photograph, I still explore the features of my camera, sometimes with less than stellar results,   I have taken many bad photographs in my life;  in fact, I still do now, but the point is I take them.  I go out shooting on some weekends and I take 500 or more images, on review I am probably pleased with around 20 to 30 of them, my aim is to raise the percentage of shots that I like.

My dad constantly told me not to touch the lens, but being an inquisitive kid, I would do this every time I used a camera, luckily I never scratched a lens.  Unfortunately, I lost all the images I had taken between this macro shot and 2009.   2009 played a huge part in developing my photography skills.  We went to the Renault World Series at Silverstone.  What more could an eager photographer ask for?  There were old cars, new cars, fast cars and even a few crashes.  I attempted to pan a few times, although  this image is one of my bad ones it was one of my first attempts at a new technique that I would later build on.

I also took it at completely the wrong angle, I’ve always explored creative angles in my photography, but now when I look back at this image I realise it wasn’t the best idea.  Trial and error has also played a huge part in my learning photography.  I always took the same shot more than once, but at different angles.  Eventually I started experimenting with the different modes on the camera, including Programmed, Shutter priority and Aperture priority; I’ve only recently started using the fully manual mode and it has really enhanced my understanding of the marvel that we call cameras.

I always try to take photos in a creative fashion; I took a shot of this Pepsi cup in KFC, London. I used aperture priority for this shot, mainly because I wanted to try blurring the background like I see in a lot of portrait photography.  I get much of my inspiration from my dad Ainslie who by the way you can find on Flickr and Google+.  I also get some inspiration from other sources,  I frequently review the work of other photographers, two of my favourites are Thomas Hawk and Andreas Kanon.

While I had known about the RAW mode on the camera for some time, it took me a while to get around to trying it.  I only tried it earlier this year, on my Fujifilm Finepix S5600 (now discontinued) which captured a 5 megapixel RAW image. I was fascinated by the quality of the RAW images, but the problem with using RAW was the time it took to save the photos, which wasn’t easy if I had to shoot a few images in succession.

The image of a dog is one of the first shots I took with RAW, this was another huge learning stage, using flash to freeze motion, especially the water droplets from the dogs shaking.

One of my favourites, which also happens to be one of my more popular images that I’ve shared, was also taken in RAW.  I titled this one ‘Birds’, yeah, I know, not the most creative title in the world. I was in the Isle of Wight , and there were 3 birds on a railing, waiting for people to drop food, so I turned on my camera, luckily they stayed still.  Capturing these images and getting feedback inspired me to try harder to capture more professional and higher quality images.

I always look at other photographers images and think, how did they set the camera up to take that image, especially of sunset/sunrise shots.  I went to a local attraction and took this sunrise shot early one morning.  Many people seem to like this one, which makes me proud, again, making me want to try harder.  The this lighting in this image encouraged me to start thinking more about the lighting in my images.

While the sun is the ultimate light source when it can there are times when artificial or modified light may be necessary.  One day while visiting my grandparents house I spied an interesting subject in their fruit bowl. I had my camera with me so I thought try my hand at a still life, I started by trying to take the photo in natural light but was disappointed with the result.  I then had the idea to use my phones LED camera flash to provide a light source in the dark to take this photo.  I was very pleased with the result.

The beauty of using a phones LED is that on many handsets now you can use a widget or an app which will allow you to turn LED on so you can use it as a torch, or even a light for taking shots with.  I suppose you could say it’s a cheap alternative to buying a professional light source.

Macro photography, as mentioned earlier has always fascinated me.  I like macro work because rather than standing back, it gives you a chance to get up close with the subject and really see the detail in the subject itself.  I took this a shot of this snake earlier this year, and was surprised myself at how much detail is in the skin, and how the eye is almost hexagonal.

Another one of my favourite macro shots has to be the one I took of a Macaw at a local animal centre.  There is so much detail in these creatures it is unbelievable sometimes, I just love the colours in their feathers.

Whenever I see another photographer shooting I look at them and think, what are they taking a photograph of, are they zoomed in, cropping, setting it up in manual mode, or are they taking a quick shot in auto?  I think it is good to do this kind of thing, I often find myself moving to where the person was standing when they move, to see if I can see what their subject matter was and then, I see if I can get that shot too.

I also learned that it is not always the best option to freeze the motion in a photo, the other day on the way home I decided to take a picture out of the back window.

As of Friday the 4^th November, I got my first ever DSLR with a 35 to 80mm lens, a flash diffuser, macro tubes.  Just in case I touch the lens a little too much, here’s one of the first shots I took with it.

Photography is an ongoing learning process, we constantly develop new techniques.  In this article I showed you my journey so far and in doing so I found a few lessons that we should always remember.

Lessons to Remember

• Take images of what you like
• You are not going to like every image you shoot, but shoot it anyway and improve on it.  Seek to improve the percentage of shots that you do like. Build on the images you have taken, see how you can improve them, learn from your mistakes.
• Take good care of your equipment
• Have a backup plan
• Know the capabilities of your equipment.
• Crowdsource inspiration/critique
• Improvise
• Learn from others
• Shoot your idea, it just may work

Let me know some of the things that you’ve learned on your journey in the comment section below.