[ Photography tips for beginners by a beginner ]

This post is birthed from a request by one blogger for me to write tips on photography for beginners. (No pressure there, dear my friend).

Not that I’m so handy with photography jargon like exposure, aperture, depth of field, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and the list goes on. (Don’t worry if you are not familiar with these terms because you won’t find me using them except in the previous sentence you’ve just read!).

Neither have I ever been acknowledged as a winner in at least one photography contest. (Although I always wish that I have).

Nevertheless, I have with me one thing in common that many of you may have acquired: passion for photography. (Pardon me if I sounded too crappy and I used too many bracketed sentences. I’ll stop it immediately after this one, I promise).

I don’t know whether I should tell you about how I first got to learn photography but, trust me, it was a quite painful process.

Okay, I shall tell you. I did self-study overnight. Yes, precisely just the night before I went on a trip to Hong Kong to take lots of pictures. Thanks to the free SLR camera guide book and the amount of information we can obtain online nowadays!

Alright, precaution before scrolling down further: these tips are purely for beginners and are not technical in nature (because I still need to experiment with my SLR using the different settings also!). Oops, another bracketed sentence.. So, feel free to bounce off this page if you are a professional photographer. NO! Don’t! I was just pulling your leg. ;)

Here you go, the photography tips for beginners:

• Observe your surroundings and the movements around you.

I guess the key is to take interest in what is happening around you by developing this habit of observing objects and people. The architecture of a building. A group of teenagers playing at the beach. An old couple holding hands. Funny toilet sign. They are really quite fascinating. Only when you get so used to this that every second of any moments feels so precious to you.

• Take multiple shots of the same objects or group of people.

This can be done by using the burst mode of your camera to avoid missing the delicate movements or by manually varying the angle of you taking the photographs to get another perspective. Be horizontally and vertically flexible with your positioning. You can capture the objects or people from their left, right, front, behind or from low and high angle.

• Pay attention to details.

The beauty of details can be captured by taking macro shots. Basically you go extraordinarily close and the objects which you intend to focus on will occupy most of the space of your frame.

I hope these basics help in the first few steps of your journey towards discovering a lot more about photography. It’s an endless but enjoyable process and so let’s learn together, my friend! :)

Cheers,

Tania