This photography field guide has been designed to provide you with the essentials for creating great pictures of the things that you love and that interest you, based on a few easy to understand artistic principles and a selection of minimal technical background topics. If you understand the principles and apply them whenever possible, you will improve the aesthetic and technical quality of the pictures you make, and You will build a better collection of the memories of your life.
The most important aspect of photography is the artistic and creative side of it. To begin with, leave the technical details to your camera as much as possible. Modern cameras are built to handle many difficult situations automatically with good results, giving you more time to concentrate on what you are photographing and how you compose the picture.
As you become more keen to go beyond good quality, well composed pictures, you can begin to influence more how the picture is exposed and focused by overriding or influencing the automatic settings of the camera. This will open up additional creative potential and this is what you will eventually do in many situations to create truly spectacular images. In order to do this successfully, you will need to understand more about the technical aspects of photography and how your camera handles specific situations.
Images and diagrams will be used throughout this field guide to illustrate lecture material. As an example, each of the above images is used to convey a specific concept in composition. Much has been written, drawn, and photographed but more needs to be done before going live. Please be patient. To preview the planned Table of Contents click: Table of Contents PDF