Photography

Other than the thousand-dollar camera and nice tripod, what distinguishes the professional photographer from the average person? The answer is, quite simply, a matter of perspective. Let’s take the case of John Common, the standard non-photographic picture taker. John uses his camera as a sort of historical recording device; he takes pictures of his family in front of the Grand Canyon, he takes pictures of his family in front of their new house, and he takes pictures of his niece as she takes her first few steps. For John, photos are merely a way of bringing back memories, and few other people beside John and his immediate family would ever be interested in looking at his photos.

Let’s take a second case, that of Jane Amateur. Jane, like John, uses a small point-and-shoot camera, the sort of thing one might by at a local electronics shop for not much more than a hundred dollars. Unlike John, though, she uses her camera as a picture frame. The pictures, the colors, the shapes and forms, all already exist in nature. What she realizes is that the art of photography is finding that picture and framing it permanently. Her pictures, taken with the same camera, may be of things as seemingly random as trees or leaves or old brick buildings – and yet the average person will look at them, linger over them, and feel compelled more because of the simple beauty Jane has managed to capture in her work.

Whether you’re more of a John or more of a Jane, you’ll probably start with a simple point and shoot camera. If you’re more artistic, you can use that simple camera to decide if you like photography enough to make the significant investment it will take to buy a modern SLR camera. A good point and shoot will also teach you the basics of photography.

The first question you might ask is whether you’ll want to go with a film camera or a digital camera. These days, it’s hardly a fair contest, especially with consumer priced cameras. Film is expensive; after the initial thirty or forty dollars you’ll spend on a memory chip, you’ll be able to take an infinite number of pictures. This is the primary quality of digital cameras, and is an invaluable one when you’re just getting started and are taking hundreds of pictures on every outing. There are still a few film die hards, but they’re getting fewer – and the difference in consumer cameras is minute enough as to put digital cameras in this category far ahead of its film competitions. Even ordering prints is easy, as you can bring in your camera or a CD with pictures into the usual developing center and have them make prints of only those pictures you want, rather than the usual film method of developing everything.

There are plenty of choices out there – one only has to walk into an electronics store and browse the digital camera section to see that. You’ll rarely be able to pay less than a hundred dollars for a digital camera, and if you’re serious about photography, you really won’t want to.

A few key phrases you’ll notice when talking with sales personnel are mega pixels and zoom. Mega pixels determines the resolution or quality of the pictures the camera can take. The more mega pixels the camera is capable of, the larger the prints you’ll be able to make with clarity. Generally, it’s good to look for a camera of at least five mega pixels.

The second catchphrase you’ll find thrown around is zoom. There are two kinds of zoom, and this can be confusing to many. Digital zoom is accomplished by manipulating the sensor chip inside the camera. This is essentially cheating; it leads to a grainier, blurrier image in return for increasing the picture size. If you want good, high quality zoom, you’ll have to get optical zoom, the sort of zoom achieved by a set of binoculars, for instance.

You’ll also want to watch out for features in the camera. Things like white balance, aperture control, and shutter speed all determine the control you can have over the photographic process. Most digital point and shoot cameras these days, especially those from big name models like Canon or Kodak, include a wide variety of these features. If you’re only going to be recording memory shots (like John Common in the example above), you really don’t have to worry about the peripherals – but if you’re really interested in artistic photography, do some research and be ready to differentiate when you get to the store.

In digital cameras, one of the first barriers you’ll run into is that of memory. Fortunately, in this modern technological age, those barriers are quickly crumbling. Most digital cameras will come with a very cheap “throw away” memory chip, usually with around sixteen megabytes of memory on it – around twelve or fifteen pictures at five mega pixels. If you don’t plan on taking a lot of pictures, go ahead and buy a smaller and cheaper chip – twenty or thirty dollars will get you a 512 MB chip, which will hold more than enough pictures for the average user.

If you plan on taking a lot of pictures, though – and if you’re interested in amateur photography, plenty of pictures is the best way to learn – invest in a two gigabyte chip or larger and you’ll be able to take more than a thousand pictures at five mega pixels – and on some photography trips, when you take hundreds of pictures, you’ll truly grow to appreciate this fact.

When you have your memory chip, make sure you have a computer. These days, this isn’t really much of a problem, as nearly everyone has one. With a few clicks of a mouse you can offload your entire memory chip onto your computer and wipe it clean, allowing you to take a thousand more pictures and pick the ones you like to keep on your computer. From there, you can burn them to CDs, add them to audiovisual presentations, or use editing software to manipulate them further.

You may not, in fact, want to stop the process at the photography stage. One of the greatest benefits of digital photography is that you can further edit your pictures after downloading them onto your computer. What was once the sole domain of professional darkroom developers can now be yours for low prices and the ease of computer technology. Developers like Jasc or Adobe have software that lets you do almost anything, from black and white or sepia toned “old fashioned” pictures to red eye correction and detail editing.

Often this software comes bundled with a computer or with a camera or printer. If not, most stores sell photo editing software. It’s amazing what you can do with a minor brightness increase or contrast adjustment – some people even will go out. Ever wanted to be in that picture with the president? Now’s your chance.

Those who use cameras for documentation purposes rather than artistic purposes don’t need to know much more than that. A simple camera, some basic software, and they’re ready to go. If you’re more serious, though, you may want to start thinking about where to go next, especially once you’ve become proficient with your point and shoot camera.

The next step up is the SLR, or Single Lens Reflex camera. You’ve seen these beauties in the hands of professional photographers, the big cameras with long lenses and multitudes of dials and buttons. In the digital world, starter-level SLRs usually run around five or six hundred, while professional cameras can range into the thousands. Film SLRs are rarely more than three hundred for opener models, but you’ll then have to worry about film and developing costs – in the long run, digital SLRs are far, far cheaper.

Like point and shoot cameras, SLRs have the good brands and the less common brands. The big names in the business are Canon, Kodak, and Nikon – with any of these brands you can’t go wrong. Always read customer reviews before you buy, though, and be especially careful when researching brands you haven’t heard of before. There’s nothing worse than spending eight hundred on a beautiful piece of equipment and having it break the day after the warranty expires.

Photography is a skill, and, like all skills, requires patience and practice to become good at. It is also, however, an art, and as such can be bolstered by the study of other forms of art. Begin looking at the way light works, at the way colors combine or clash. Study books of photography from the great photographers of the past – if you’re interested in contemporary color photography, one of your best resources will be the big National Geographic photography books, showcasing some of the best photography of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Most libraries contain photography collection books; take a look and see what’s out there.

There are also plenty of self-help photography books available to the amateur photographer, covering everything from portrait works to travel photography to nature photography to all-encompassing tutorials on the art as a whole. Browse your local library: if you find something you really like, considering adding it to your collection.

The field of photography is intensely competitive and very hard for the beginner to break into. Fortunately, there are a few ways you can take to get to that final goal of making money off of taking pictures. One simple method is called stock photography. Thanks to the Internet, stock photos are now a big commerce item, used by advertising companies all over the world to illustrate points and decorate pamphlets. By uploading a few dozen pictures, you get your work out there and can take a commission from the website for every one of your pictures sold. While this usually doesn’t supply anything more than supplemental income, there are a few photographers out there who make their entire livings this way.

The bread and butter for professional photographers are weddings. If you have a decent camera – i.e., an SLR – consider taking free pictures for friends. When you have some work you can showcase in a portfolio, begin offering your services for a fee. With word of mouth on your side you can become successful in no time.

While stock photography and in-person work like weddings or family portraits are all well and good, they are by no means the only way to break into the profession. If you’ve ever admired the work many magazines, such as National Geographic, showcase, you might be the type to enter that work as well.

Start small. An invaluable tool is the Photographer’s Market, released yearly, which details magazine markets for photographers. If you can’t find a copy, the Writer’s Market, available in most libraries, also contains photography information. Start by submitting your pictures to smaller magazines – don’t expect much more than a hundred dollars for a sale, if anything at all. Tailor your work to the market – if you take pictures of old farm buildings, send your pictures to country or rural magazines.

Once you’ve begun to be known in the market, you can use previous references in your submissions – you can climb the ladder, in other words. While this process is time consuming and a lot of work and not at all sure to turn a profit, it is also the way to get to the top. Who knows – maybe National Geographic is looking for the next great American photographer, and who knows; maybe that photographer is you.