Photography and Photoshop Lessons
You have probably found your way to this page because of one thing – you want to learn more about photography. Maybe this is something that you have played around with for a long time, or perhaps it is something that you just recently picked up – it doesn’t matter – you want to learn more. Already you are far ahead of the masses of point and shoot photographers that are happy with whatever their automatic camera gives them – much like Neo – you know that there is something more out there, but you don’t know what the question is – just the answer. the Answer is making creating images with your camera the way that you see them in your mind. The Question is where do you start? Do you spend $1000’s on a new camera? is it the flash – do you need a bigger / better flash? Or maybe a better lens – a big zoom one like you see the guys that shoot pictures on the sidelines at football games – if you had one of those….
The answer isn’t the equipment. The answer isn’t anything that you have to buy (sure – you will want to get some really cool equipment, but learn to walk before you try to run)…the answer is knowledge. Before you can even begin to think of yourself as photographer, you have to understand how to capture the light. A person with a fully automatic camera is just capturing expressions or usually – just getting lucky if they end up with some good images. We have to be able to look at a scene and within a couple of seconds decide how to capture the light – because let’s face it…it doesn’t matter how cute the kids in front of the camera are, or whose birthday it is – if there is the wrong amount of light falling on the camera’s sensor – it doesn’t matter , you won’t see them anyway.
“The answer isn’t anything that you have to buy”
Then there is Photoshop – I’ll be honest – the reason that I shoot pictures for myself now is not just for the “hunt” of the image, but so that I can feed my habit – my Photoshop (PS) habit. I love PS – it is like a wife…just when you think you have it figured out, you then realize that you are just scratching the surface – that you only know a very very small part of what PS is. PS helps us doctor images with problems (you still have to have proper exposure and good focus) and it helps us make great pictures into unbelievable pictures.
There are many purists that don’t understand that turn up their noses at Photoshop – I have been told that the resulting image isn’t what was shot. Most of these people have never processed pictures in a darkroom and using a piece of cardboard or their hand dodged or burned or sepia colored a finished print or cropped when printing – PS allows us to do the same, only now our darkroom is sitting on our lap or desk. I have come to think of PS not as a stand alone program that I use independently of my photography, but were my camera is an extension of my eye – PS is an extension of my mind. It allows me to hand someone an image that is exactly how I envisioned it in my mind.
I have taught Photoshop workshops at Goshen College, I have taught groups of high school and Jr. High Art teachers at the East Central Indiana Educational Center, I have helped several established portrait studios switch to digital, including using PS in their work flow.