Practicing Photography

Many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I took a Kodak Brownie camera with me to camp and took some pictures. When my parents developed the film, they liked them so much that they mounted them on mat boards and hung them in our house.

That initial introduction to picture taking began my love of photography.

Fast forward many years and I have moved beyond a small film camera to using my iPhone and my Nikon for all of my photography.

As much as I love the convenience of using my iPhone (and it takes better pictures than my first digital camera!), I love the versatility of using my DSLR and learning how to take better pictures.

Two years ago, I participated in a 365 project and worked on using my DSLR to take a picture every single day for a whole year. Phew! That was quite a project.

What I loved about that project was it helped me to practice using my camera every day. Capturing different subjects, using different settings, and being creative.

Recently, I have been wanting to use my DSLR more, so I was happy to see a Practice Ebook available from Katrina Kennedy. I love that this book is self-paced and I can work through it when my schedule permits.

So far, I have worked through the first two exercises. Let me show you what I captured (these are all straight out of the camera):

ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/250 sec

ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/250 sec

ISO 100, f/2.5, 1/160 sec

ISO 100, f/2.5, 1/160 sec

ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/80 sec

ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/80 sec

ISO 100, f/5, 1/40 sec

ISO 100, f/5, 1/40 sec

ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/20 sec

ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/20 sec

ISO 100, f/10, 1/10 sec

ISO 100, f/10, 1/10 sec

ISO 100, f/14, 1/5 sec

ISO 100, f/14, 1/5 sec

It was fun to use my old Brownie camera as the subject for each of these photos. One thing I learned about this exercise is that there is a minimum focal length for each of my lenses (hmm, no wonder I can't focus when I try to get too close!)

Are you wanting to improve your DSLR photography? I encourage to take a peek at Katrina's Practice Ebook.  It is very reasonably priced and goes through a lot of fundamentals. I am looking forward to working through more exercises and hope to share more of what I am capturing along the way.