How to Learn Digital Photography

The great thing about using a digital camera for your photography is that you can see what you're shooting right away. This allows you to be more creative and to have more fun with your photography. I used to be so afraid of making mistakes when I had a film camera because of the expense of the film and prints, and now I shoot anything and everything. If I don't like the image I can just delete the photo! And the cool thing is, some of my mistakes have made great photographs worth framing.

Whether you love shooting nature, cityscapes or people - digital photography is the way to go. (for me there's nothing more fascinating to capture than interesting architecture) If you have a decent digital camera you don't need any other really expensive equipment, except maybe a decent tripod. Now don't get me wrong it's not as easy as they make it seem on the camera commercials on TV, you still need to know a trick or two. I had no idea about white balance or megapixels before I read a book or two. Here's a trick, when you understand white balance, you can fool the camera into thinking it needs to "warm" the photo so it looks like morning light.

Now the best way to justify that new digital camera is to learn how to get better at capturing all the memories of your kids growing up. Their first birthday, their first day of school, family holidays, and just every day fun stuff. It doesn't matter how much your camera costs, if you have priceless family memories for years to come. One of the cool photo projects my wife and I started was to photograph each of our son's first days of school - what a cool graduation gift!

Before you start shooting, really look at your subject. Watch their face - their eyes. See how they smile, what makes them smile. You can drastically improve your photography by just taking some time to open your eyes and observe.

Someone once told me the key to great photography is first to learn how to see. And it's true, the camera is just the machine to record, but it's your eyes and mind that decide what and how to capture.

Enjoy, and get out there shooting!

Dave Gladstone.
(Registered Graphic Designer and Passionate Photographer)

This book has some great easy to follow techniques that quickly teach even the most novice photographer how to use their digital camera so they will get more from their photography experience. David Peterson has simplified what I thought was so difficult to teach.

This book has a great "Do It By The Numbers' system to help the photographer more easily understand how to get the most out of their digital camera.

Digital Photography Secrets is a great book!

Dave Gladstone.
(Registered Graphic Designer and Passionate Photographer)