digeratess

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional photographer, but I have become a serious amateur. The steps below probably aren’t very relevant for a professional seeking to hone his craft.

Step 0 – Exercise self control
Don’t go out and buy a new camera or a bunch of equipment thinking if you just had nicer stuff you’ll have nicer pictures.

Step 1 – Master your equipment
I dug out the manual for my camera and learned all the functions. I learned about many functions I didn’t know it had. More importantly, I learned that I had no idea why I’d want to use many functions on my camera.

Step 2 – Learn classic technique
After a lot of research into basic photography books, I settled on the much recommended Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It’s not very long, and it cuts out a lot of crap included in more encyclopedic volumes. After reading that book, I believe I have a solid foundation in photography fundamentals. It cleared up most of the questions I had from reading my camera manual. In fact, I read this book with my camera and manual close by.

Step 3 – Get organized
This is really about the photographER more than the photographY. I got a book called The DAM Book, (DAM + Digital Asset Management) which presents excellent concepts and practical methods for organizing your digital photos. The first chapter of the book is available for free at thedambook.com. Even as a non-serious amateur, I’d collected thousands of photos over just the past few years. I didn’t want to start pumping in new photos without having a better organizational scheme. This book really helped.

Step 4 – Practice
This is not so much a step as something that almost goes without saying. If you’re shooting digital, you have nothing to lose. Define the shot you want first, then set out to take it. Don’t just point and shoot and see what looks nice at the other end. There’s nothing wrong with that except you’re trying to become a better photographer.

Step 5 – Consider new equipment
AFTER you have mastered what you have, and AFTER you have educated yourself about basic photography concepts and AFTER you have implemented an organizational system to hold all your great new shots and AFTER you have honed all this with practice, THEN look for new equipment. You will know better what you need and what you want, and you will understand all the specs better. If you’re considering a new digital camera, I highly recommend visiting dpreview.com. You’ll find everything you ever wanted to know about most any camera from $40 to $4,000 cameras.

Ok, I really wouldn’t call myself a Javascript master; however, I am definitely able to use Javascript masterfully now. This is mostly thanks to one of the best technical books I’ve ever bought called DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith. It’s one of those great books that you can read as a beginner and everything is totally clear; then well after you’ve mastered the techniques explained, you’ll be peeking at it again and again as a reference. For years I haven’t been willing to buy a Javascript book because there are so many free tutorials online. Well, you get what you pay for, and a lot of people writing tutorials out there really don’t know how to use Javascript properly. This is one of the few technical books I actually read cover to cover. This is one of those really easy Things to mark off—just read the book!

The quick version: I am happy with the camera, a Nikon Cookpix 8800, which is a consumer-end SLR. It performs exactly as advertised. I like being able to shoot and manipulate RAW. The greater size and weight of the camera is a lot more of an issue than I anticipated, though. I used to carry my smaller Coolpix 4300 in my purse and was therefore ready to shoot anything anytime. I only carry my 8800 when I anticipate shooting, so of course I don’t use it nearly as much. Bottom line, I wish I had looked harder at the upper-end of the more compact cameras rather than insisting on the larger.