LEARN, DO, REVIEW: Photography Quickstart Guide

1. INTRO: Welcome to the photography Quick start guide. I'm Bryan Paris and I'll be instructor for this course. In my 20 years of teaching multimedia production, I've found that the learn do review system is the best way to learn a new skill. I've been training students all over the world to be better photographers, filmmakers that multimedia producers. By using this simple method that I perfected over the years, I've seen a lot of other classes that lecture about cameras and shooting techniques. It is good information, but the best learning doesn't stop there. That is just the start. After that, you have to get out and use those principles and then come back and evaluate your progress and your learned to review courses. That is precisely what we will be doing. This is a beginning photography course. This is for students who have just gotten a new camera and are wanting to go out and shoot some pictures and maybe get some good shots but don't have a lot of experience and don't have a lot of technical know how this course won't go into all the technical details. It's just gonna give you some good quick tips about getting out shooting and hopefully coming back with some good photos. For this course, you can use either a smartphone or a digital camera. We're gonna be shooting Snapshot Portrait's. So if you're interested in landscapes or anything like that, this is not the course for you. This is just staff shot portrait, So let's get started with our learned do review program. 2. LEARN: THE BASICS: Let's start at the beginning of the basics. Every photo that you take will have to be in focus and correctly exposed. A lot of people will tell you all the manual settings that you'll use and the great things you can do with your camera. I'm gonna give you a tip, but shoot full auto. I know professional photographers will tell you they don't shoot full auto, but we're just getting started. So we're gonna shoot everything on auto. If you look on your digital camera will be a Emmanuel or an automatic mode on your lens and then on auto mode on your camera itself, make sure they're both on auto and let's get out and shoot. If you're using a smartphone, it should already be set up for full auto. If you remember, I said this course was going to be a learn do review. So the first thing we're going to do is we already learned that we need to put it in full auto. Now we're going to do something. We're gonna get you out and shooting. Take your camera, go outside and shoot at least five pictures. You can shoot more if you want but five is the minimum and then pick your favorite and posted in our project gallery. It's going to be important that we do project galleries because that's where we're going to see other student work, and we're going to be able to review our 3. LEARN: FRAMING: our first section in the photography quick start guide is framing. We're gonna learn how to frame your shot to get the best possible photo. First thing we want to do is eliminate distractions. A lot of times you'll see a photo and they'll be something small in the frame, and that's what you want people to focus on. But actually, there's a bunch of junk around the outside. In this course, we're gonna be learning how to eliminate all the extra stuff around. The most important thing we're gonna be learning is that you have to put the head in a clean space. What that means is, when you're taking a picture of a person, make sure there's nothing in the background that's distracting from their face. A lot of people have trees or something sticking out of the back of somebody's head in here . We want to eliminate that and make sure, at least if the background I za pattern or something that's pretty study, we're gonna try to make it out of focus. If we can, and we're going to make it as clean as possible, you'll see in this shot this my friend Doug, he's standing right next to a wall. It's kind of distracting because the walls in focus. If we haven't step away from the wall, you'll notice the background goes out of focus. This is a main thing that you're gonna want to do. Always have your subject stand away from the background. Next thing we're gonna learn is tip number three. Fill the frame for this one. You're gonna make sure the subject of your portrait is the most dominant aspect of your picture. You can see here. This is a wide shot of my friend Doug. There's a lot of distracting elements. We get a little bit closer and you get a little bit better. Photo a little bit closer still, and it gets even better. But eventually you get to him, filling the full frame. And this is the best that the photos that we've seen so far. Tip number four. Use a frame. A lot of times you'll be out and you'll see a natural frame in this picture. This is my daughter. She's at a playground. There's a there's a frame built out of pipes, so when I put her in the middle of it, it forms a natural frame inside the photo. This photo is a friend of mine. We're actually using picture frames to frame him one on each side again with my daughter. She's at a playground and they've got a nice round frame and a friend We were shooting outside. We came across this statue and he was able to put his head, so it was framed by the statue. Tip number five, Find your level. A lot of people want to shoot from just standing up, and no matter what they're shooting, whether the shorter, tall it's from their eye level, what I'm suggesting is that you get down to the level of the person you're shooting. In this case, it was a young child, so I got down on the ground. I was shooting her another one new shooting from the ground. Sometimes you have to get in the water. If you've got a waterproof camera, that's a great opportunity to get some nice underwater shots. Sometimes you want to be overhead. In this picture, I'm shooting from on top and you can see down into the leaves and my daughter she's playing a little peek a boo. Here's another one from a different time again from above. Sometimes you don't want to be above you want to be below. In this case, the child becomes a giant and now many project number to take five more pictures using what you have learned from the framing lessons. Post your favorite in the gallery. Here's a little bit of a review of what we just learned. Number one. Eliminate distractions number to fill the frame. Number three use of frame and number four find your level. 4. LEARN: LIGHTING: the next section in the photography quick start guide is lighting here. We're gonna be learning about lighting, indoor and outdoor photos. We're not gonna be bringing any additional lights to our shoot. We're just gonna be finding light that we have available. Tip number six, Find your light inside. And this one Look for a window that is, uh, not facing the sun, so it's a little bit overcast, and if you shoot near this, you'll notice that you'll get a nice soft light. Sometimes you're out about, and whatever you're looking at is providing the light. In the first picture, you'll see that the aquarium is lighting up my daughter's face, and in the 2nd 1 it's lighting up her face. What? I'm shooting from behind, so I've got a nice silhouette. Both options are good for indoor photography. Sometimes you'll run into some interesting light, like in this shot of a band. We found an elevator with some interesting polka dot lights up above. Just having them stand there and taking the photo from below gave us a really good shot with reflections in sunglasses and a nice overhead background. Number seven. Find your light outside a lot of people want to take a photo with the light shining directly into somebody's face. This this isn't necessarily the best way to do it, because you will inevitably get the person squinting in your photo. So what I try to do is get the sun off to one side or behind them. In these photos, you'll see that the sun is not directly in the person's face. So you see there big, bright eyes, and that's what you're going for in photos. So remember when you're outside, don't put the sun in there. Another way to deal with the sun is to not deal with it at all is to find some shape. Go out and get your shade. Make sure that it's a cloudy day or its shady day and get some good shots with the nice soft line tip Number eight. Match your light. In this case, delight on our subject is gonna be the same as we have in the background. If the sun is on their face, we want the sun on the background. If it's shade on their face, we want the shade in the background. This will avoid the problems that you'll have where you'll have the face will be too bright or the background will be too bright. If we match the foreground and background, both of them will be correctly exposed, and we'll get a really good picture. Tip number nine is Golden Hour. There's an hour that's not really an hour. It's kind of less than an hour. That's right after sunrise or right before sunset. And this is where you can get a nice golden light, like in these photos. So here's many. Project three. Go ahead and take five more photos using what you have learned from the lightning lessons. Go outside. Go inside wherever you feel comfortable. Post your favorite in the project gallery as a review. Always remember to find your light inside. Use a window if possible. Find your light outside by looking for shade and matching your foreground to background and , if possible, shoot at golden hour either sunrise or sunset. That will give you the best light for any of your photos. 5. DO: THE FINAL PROJECT: and finally we come to the photography quick start guides Final project. This is where you're gonna put your skills to use. You're gonna go out and take your final photos. But before we go, let's remember Tip number 10. Have fun. That means when you're out there, have some fun will not only help your photos, but it will help your subject matter to when you're having fun. They're having fun and you'll get the best photos. You'll get a real genuine smile. You'll get the quirky looks and you'll have a lot of fun. The final project eyes the big project. Go with a friend or family member. Remember, we're not using bottles were just using friends we know and use what you have learned from all the lessons to shoot at least 20 pictures and make sure their pictures. I'm not looking for photographs from expensive professional photographers. These are you. You're a beginner. These air pictures make sure your pictures Aaron focus. Improperly exposed. That's kind of the beginning, and that's the absolute minimum that all your photos could be. Bring your shots using the framing lesson and try to get good photos in both inside and outside light. When you're done, post your favorites in the project gallery. Once you posted your photos. This is where you can review um, are all your photos and focus and properly exposed? Did you use the framing lessons to highlight your subject? Is the lighting of your subject and background correct? And did you have fun? Those were the important questions you need to ask. Once you've looked at your own photos. Now it's time to look at somebody else's. Look at what the other students have done. Give them feedback if they ask for it. Start with something you like about the photos before pointing out what you don't like. This is just a critique method that I use where you say something good before you say something back. I think it starts everybody off on the right foot. This is also a chance to ask questions. If you have any questions about your photos on how you can make them better, you can ask your questions on your project and then answer other people's questions on their projects. Thank you for taking the course. I hope you got out and took some good photos