haha604 said:
I would like to get started in learning photography. Can anyone suggest a website or something that I can learn from? thx.
Btw I don't have a digital camera. The only camera i find at home is a Canon EOS500, bought in 1995.
I'm in my fourth year of art school right now, so I've got quite a bit of experience taking pictures and critiquing other's pictures. If you are looking to learn how to take good pictures, I strongly believe you should keep your reading to a minimum. A lot of people's work I see in photography forums on the Internet stress the rule of 3rds, rigid lighting techniques and really traditional compositions. But basically, what the contemporary art world has caught on to and what many photographers on the Internet have completley ignored, is that reading too much and stressing composition too much creates very boring pictures.
But, you still do need to do a bit of reading. Check out the Learning section over at photo.net (
www.photo.net/learn/), and focus on learning as much as you can on the actual mechanical workings of a camera. Learn as much as you can about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lighting, flashes, film etc.
After that, stop reading. Start looking at as many images in as many places as you possibly can. Look at pictures in magazines, look at pictures in art galleries, look at stills from films, look at pictures on the internet. Find images that you like and analyze them: try and figure out what lens, lighting, flash, aperture, film etc. was used in the picture. After you have a good grasp on understanding what technical elements make up a good picture, go nuts and take as many pictures as you possibly can of everything and anything you see (digital cameras are especially good for this since taking a billion pictures doesn't cost anything). If you are using a film camera, it can often be helpful to carry around a notepad and make a note of the settings you use on each image (digital cameras will have a record of the settings you used imbedded in the file, so you don't need to bother). Figure out what settings on your pictures don't work and which settings do work.
It takes a long time to get good at photography - I'm not nearly as good as I want to be after taking tens of thousands of shots. But basically concentrate on learning all the mechanical and technical aspects of operating a camera first, and then become a giant sponge for great photographs.
If you're looking for somewhere to find a lot of great images to look at, I'll recomend a few sites:
www.eatpoo.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=8 - EatPoo photography forum. There are tonnes of great photographers, and the critiques and comments exchanged on the forum can be helpful for everyone.
www.poxin.com/pictures/photos/ - Guy I went to highschool with. Shoots digital, and has an absolutely incredible eye for composition. Rarely follows any traditional photography rules. (His work in 2003 and 2004 is much better than his earlier stuff)
www.visual-noise.net/alpha/ - Directory listing of a site that isn't quite yet finished, but this guy is an absolutely amazing photographer. His work can also be seen in a more organized fashion at
www.visual-noise.com and
www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=237688.
www.zenon.8m.com - Shameless plug for my own site.
I hope thats a good starter, have fun!
