Action is the foundational key to all success. ~Pablo Picasso

So you want to be a photographer, huh? Your family and friends all say you take wonderful pictures, right? But do you even know the first thing to run a successful business or how to step out of that little green box on your camera? Well, I am creating this new blog series to help you become a great photographer and business person. I will be writing about the little things that I wish someone would have told me when I first started.. So I am going to be here to hold your hand from a far along your journey.

So let’s start with the camera. There are many camera’s out there. You have to pick which ever one you feel is the best fit for you…. Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc. You will want it to be a DSLR. Now I started off having a canon rebel that I first used for shooting my family and when I decide that I wanted to engage in a business I decided (well compromised with my CPA husband due to $$) that I would get a Canon 50d and a new iMac computer. See to start this business there are so many unforeseen costs involved: camera, computer, editing software, lenses, camera bags, templates, website, blog, etc. These are all things that I will be covering in this new series. Back to the camera. What the heck is ISO, APERTURE, SHUTTER SPEED, & WHITE BALANCE?

ISO: How sensitive the film is to light. The lower the ISO the less sensitive it is for lots of light. The highter the ISO the more sensitive it is to less light. Some of your iso settings are 100, 200, 320, 400….6400.

APERTURE: The aperture is the size of the opening in the lens that lets the light in. A wide open aperture is 1.2-4.0 and help you get those yummy blurry backgrounds called BOKEH. A less open aperture is 4.5-7.0 and they let you get those sharp background used for portraitures or those family shoots.

WHITE BALANCE: White balance is a camera setting that adjusts for lighting in order to make white objects appear white in photos. This is more difficult than it might seem due to the fact that light cast from different sources is different in color (technically called temperature). That is to say, light is rarely truly white in nature. The light from an incandescent or halogen bulb, for example, is red/orange in color, while that from the sun is relatively blue. A proper white balance setting in a camera will prevent, for example, a white bed sheet in a photo from appearing orange in color when it is being illuminated by a candle. So an incorrect light balance can create a blue, orange, or even a green color cast. Try using an EXPO DISC for adjusting your white balance. It works like magic.

SHUTTER SPEED: It is the amount of time a camera’s shutter stays open so that the light can enter through the lens and expose the image to the film. You should try to keep your shutter speed at 1/125 or higher. If you don’t have that then you need to adjust your ISO and/or your APERTURE.

Remember to read your camera’s manual for more information on the above. AND PRACTICE AND PRACTICE!

Well once you conquer these steps you are well on your way to shooting in manual mode. I challenge you this week to shoot something in manual mode. Where it is a child, pet, building, car, flower, or whatever your heart desires and then come back and either email me your pic or post a link to what you have learned.

My goal is to help those starting out in the photography world and make life a little bit easier for YOU!

I LOVE comments so if you could tell me a little bit about YOU, I would LOVE to get to know YOU better!