Learning to See in Photography – sshh, but your camera is useless!
One of the first things you might be told when asking ‘how do I improve my photography’ is to get to know your camera settings. To come away from auto mode if you like. But, if truth be told, unless you are wanting to take something very technical – an action shot, long exposure, low light, that kind of thing, or you are a master photographer – your camera on auto is likely to do a better job than you of getting those settings right.
What your camera can’t do however, is compose the shot for you. Or find that creative angle. And, frankly, until you have mastered that, how ever good your shot is technically, it won’t have that magic we strive for.
Fortunately there are some easy things you can do to practice ‘learning to see’, to improve your ability to find the angle, the composition, the shot.
Olney Camera Club regularly conduct learning to see practice sessions: these are two we did this year that you can try today. And you don’t even need a fancy camera. Using your phone camera will train those instincts just as well.
Scavenger Hunt
This is a simple idea where you go out with a list of things to photograph in a short period of time. We went to Emberton village recently and gave ourselves one hour to take at least one photograph that matches these ten items: beginning with g, blue, high or low, minimal, motion, natures’ mark, patterns, shiny, threes, wildcard. Keeping the list reasonably abstract tends to work the creativity harder. You’ll find lots of lists online, or use ours. You can choose any location, even your garden or your living room. The idea is, that the short space of time and the limited list of items really makes you hunt down that image and hone your eye.
Point of View Challenge
In this challenge, you are free to take any photo you like, but from a limited location. We chose to stay within the confines of Olney Market Place, but you could go tighter still and choose a subject like a particular tree, Goosey Bridge, kitchen utensils etc. The idea with this one is that you learn to look at things differently. If you are going to take ten photos of Goosey Bridge for example, or the contents of your cutlery draw, what can you do to make them different. You will soon learn to see light, angles, perspective. The photos to the right are from the session the camera club did in June.
Final Tip: whether you take up the challenges above or not, our parting shot would be just get out there and keep shooting. The more you use your camera and enjoy your hobby, the more you’ll learn to see, and the more fun you’ll have with your camera.
