Introduction to Photography : Theoretical and Practical Understanding

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.

(1) For $15 you will receive a 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.

You may purchase just the instructional booklet ($15.00) as a file which you can read in your web browser and print out for yourself. Then, if you wish, you may continue with private, individualized instruction ($85.00), having your questions answered and your photographs analyzed and critiqued. I try to analyze the photos in each of two different ways:

(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.

This is so that you can learn how to take pictures of the sort you wish to take and so that you can also know, if you care, how I might have structured the picture differently in the first place. Foremost, I want you to be able to take pictures that come out the way you want them to, so that when you conceive of a picture you will be able also to achieve it. But I also want this instruction to involve some aesthetic components in case that might help you improve as well. However, to some extent aesthetic considerations are more subjective or personal, so I will not be trying to force you to take the pictures I would or to take pictures in the way I would. I want to teach you how to get the results that you want.