Photography is basically pretty simple if you understand how film and your camera "see", and if you understand how to see what your eyes see instead of seeing what your mind "sees".

This introduction is intended for beginners and hobbyists. But it is theoretically fairly complete, and can also be extremely helpful to those who have taken a photography course or who have been doing photography on their own, but who feel they "don't really understand what they are doing" or don't understand why some pictures turn out well and others turn out poorly -- people who genuinely feel that when they get a good picture it was more because of luck than skill.

The instruction has three components:

• (1) For $15 you will receive an HTML file you can read in your web browser that will explain the basic elements and principles of photography, organized in a way that helps them make perfectly good sense to you; but they will not, at this point, be second nature to you or have "sunk in" very far to your understanding. That will require you to think about the principles as you take more pictures and as you look at them afterward.
• (2) If you wish to continue with private instruction ($85.00), you will then be able to receive further explanations by e-mail or by telephone (inside the US) to any questions you may have about that initial explanation, and
• (3) as you shoot your own pictures, you will be able to receive critiques of them by sending me JPEG images that I will analyze with you over the Internet. At this point, the principles explained in the original instruction guide should start to sink in and become more automatic.

• (1) from the perspective of what you wish to accomplish, and how to help you do that; and
• (2) from my own perspective in terms of what I might recommend that you try to accomplish with the subject you have chosen, and why.