How I Learn Photography

Older posts of my blog 

• What blogs do I read?
• My pictures
• 5 Slideshow Tools For Your Photos
  I have been testing recently a few tools that help photographers displaying their photos on the Web in slideshows in a creative way.
• An other portrait session
  This time I was shooting an old friend of mine who is happen to be a tap dancer, choreographer and dance instructor. He needed the pictures for his Web site and I needed the model for practicing portrait photography with a real flash'n'blood human being. :-)
• From Chase Jarvis to fellow photographers
  This is a video recording of Chase Jarvis' presentation that he gave on a PhotoShelter event in New York to the audience of more than 600 photographers. Chase is a commercial advertising photographer. He is - as he says - a reasonably good photographer. He is damn good, actually.
• Bert Stephani's lighting tutorials - episode 1, 2 and 3
• What to buy as a beginner
  (if you want to learn photography)?
  A friend of mine told me the other day that he is planning to buy his first DSLR and asked me about focal lengths and F values of lenses. I told him what I think about a starter kit and I recommended a way to follow, but a different one that I went through.
  And I recommended that because I have done wrong.
• 5 Traps of Professional Photography Equipment
  Taking photos is fun and it is even greater fun when you can use top quality professional equipment. However owning top quality gear hides a few traps for the inexperienced.
• Practicing portrait photography
  Portraiture is a very exciting - but also challenging - area of photography. Doing it well is not trivial and one cannot master it without practicing. I managed to organize my first portrait photography session a few days ago with real people not from my family. I made quite a lot of mistakes, but a few good pictures as well. Might be beneficial for beginners to read about my experiences. Here comes how the session went.
• Qtpfsgui - The Open Source HDR Solution
  Being an open source advocate I was very glad to read on Digg that there is an HDR software for Linux. Well, it is available for Mac OS X and Windows as well, but the point is GNU/Linux here.
  The tool is called Qtpfsgui and it already has a group pool on Flickr.
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom vs. Nikon Capture NX
  As a beginner of photography I'm keen to find the best software package for my image processing tasks. As I wrote earlier, I shoot only in raw format for its unarguable advantages. I've been testing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Nikon Capture NX for a few weeks. By now I found a few important features of and differences between the two packages. (A more complete comparison should include Apple Aperture as well, but currently I don't have access to any Apple computer with MacOS.)
  
  Both software packages are targeting professional photographers and support their image processing workflow starting from raw images. Workflow support means that adjustment tools are not hidden deeply in menus and complicated toolbars but are grouped in a meaningful way and their usage is rather intuitive. It does not mean though that you can easily use all of their functionality without reading a word from their manuals (Lightroom manual and getting started guide, Capture NX manual). They are pleasant bed time readings. Both of them are available for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS. Lightroom is currently US $199 while Capture NX is around US $125.
  ...
  Adobe Photoshop Lightroom vs. Nikon Capture NX - part II
  organizing photos
  Adobe Photoshop Lightroom vs. Nikon Capture NX - part III
  photo adjustments