Photography Help/Instruction??

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I'm very interested in photography however am a bit overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I need to learn. Does anyone know of a place on the net that's straight forward and easy for beginners to learn??

I need photography for dummies or something. Videos would be a plus! I'm more a visual learner.

I don't really know of anywhere that can take you from simple to advanced, but usually if you want to know something about anything you just go to youtube,theres always videos there about just about everything. Or you can just ask me and I'll try and give you some advice.

I'm a first year photography major at a university and it's quite crazy how much info i have to take in. i'm learning first hand how to actually develop film. if you have any questions i could help you. are you using a digital camera? nikon d40, canon rebel?

Where do you start? That's a really hard question to answer because we don't know your interests and your level of experience. I assume you are starting out since you ask for a “dummies” book, but I also assume you have enough passion for it to have already done some work.

Do a search on You Tube for photography tutorials. “beginning photography tutorial” That might be a good starting point. Do searches for key words that interest you. If you like landscapes, search for “landscape photography tutorial” If you like portraiture, search for “portraiture photography tutorial” You get the drift. Keep trying different combinations of search terms until you find useful information.

While, unfortunately I couldn't find any tutorials by Bobbi Lane, I strongly recommend her videos (available at Calumet Photographic Supply) I took classes with her when she was based in L.A. and she is one of the most generous and capable teachers of photography. She is currently based in Connecticut and if you ever get a chance to take her classes, I strongly recommend them. There are a couple of videos of her on You Tube but they do not reveal much.

If you have a digital camera, you have a huge advantage. Shoot and shoot and shoot. Make mistakes. Learn the rules of photography and then break them. Experiment. Look at photographs in magazines. If you like a style, see if you can do something similar, but with your own unique spin on it. Sometimes it can be useful to very rigorously copy a photograph just to figure out how it was done.

You don't need expensive equipment. It can help make things easier, but the key to photography is really looking at light. Look at the quality of light falling on your subject. Is it hard and contrasty? Is it soft and flattering? What is it's color? Is it coming from in front or behind the subject?

The most important tool to a photographer is their eye, not their camera. Look at photographs. Look at the world. Look through your camera and look at the scene without it. Look at the scene from ground level or high above. Does it look different than if you shot it at eye-level? And as you are doing here, ask questions.

Good luck,

Lars Bunch
www.larsbunch.com

you just gotta dive in and start shooting, join flickr, deviantart, all the sites, request critical feedback and impove your talent over time.....I'm happy to check your stuff out

two tips:

-in terms of composition (law of thirds, colour harmony, that kind of thing), what applies to painting applies to photography, so that you can actually learn a lot from classical painting, drawing, engravings.

-ideally a photograph should have the entire gamut from very dark to very light, but no regions should be completely saturated (no white patches or black patches).

Surprisingly, HP has a whole section devoted to beginning photography. You have to create an account, but there's a good 15-20 little courses; videos, quick lessons, and more in-depth

http://h30187.www3.hp.com/all_courses.jsp