So way back in semester 1 I had a short course on photography at school. This is when it all PROPERLY started. By this I mean that I was actually always into taking pictures. I love taking pictures. I remember when I was 10 or 11 and I saved up just enough to buy my first digital camera by Nikon and I used to take pictures of just about anything and everything. Few years down the road, when I turend 14/15, I still enjoyed taking pictures through my dad's camera. I would always bring it to school for any events or when I had any outings with my friends. Back then camera phones weren't of very good quality so people still relied on cameras to capture casual moments. I really enjoyed it. Few years down the road again, 17/18 years old, my dad gave me his olympus camera that I brought with me to Australia and Europe and I took pictures of EVERYTHINGGGG. I loved capturing the scenaries and buildings that I never get to see in my everyday life and I loved how they looked even more beautiful in pictures. HOWEVER, up until then I always clicked pictures on auto mode...which pretty much anyone can take good pictures with...coz the camera automatically sets everything for you so you just have to click. Not to say that just because you take pictures on auto mode means you shouldn't be proud of your pictures. Auto mode is great for beginners because you can really focus on the way you take pictures and the composition of your pictures and train your eyes to see how you can take pictures differently. My dad always says that you can fix the lighting using any application but no one can teach you how to take a picture. That is something only you can do. So really if you are absolute beginner, I would suggest you to try taking pictures only on auto and train your aesthetic vision.
Now at the age of 19/20 when I started uni and I had a proper project on photography, we had an actual photographer come and teach us about it. This is why I say that this was the beginning of my photography journey on a proper note. We had to take pictures on manual mode, meaning we decide the settings of the camera depending on what picture we are taking and how much light we need. I had a really hard time at first understanding the combination of the 3 settings we were taught (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) It was very new to me. But it was interesting nonetheless. Luckily, my dad is into photography so he helped me explain them as well. But it is always easier when someone explains. Problem comes when you actually start taking pictures and then you forget some stuff. I may write another post showing you some of the pictures I took for my project and during my classes. I had a lot of fails but I eventually ended up taking a pretty good final picture for my project and got good remarks about it.
Anyway, now that my holidays have started, I really want to become better at this. I am no where near good yet but I have come across a long way I would say. I understand the 3 settings now and I am able to adjust accordingly depending on the type of picture I want to take. The satisfaction is real when you see pictures come out well. This week I took a trip down to Coney Island at Punggol to take some pictures. I thought I would start out with nature. Nature is always the easiest thing to start out with in my opinion as it has natural lighting and you are quite free to take pictures in anyway you like. After that, you can try out with buildings and then I would suggest you to try indoors and finally night photography. Night photography can be tricky so it is always better to leave it for the last after you have tried and somewhat mastered (become comfortable) with taking other pictures during the day.
Coney Islands was a beautiful place to take pictures at. I would really suggest you to go there to take pictures if you are into photography yourself. Personally, I found it slightly hard to take pictures as the whole place looks the same if you don't pay close attention. So I thought it was a very good place to train your aesthetic vision as you will have to think "how else can I take this picture and make it look different/unique"
Anyway, I'm not gonna ramble a lot because I know people don't like to read much hahaha! I'm just gonna insert some of my favourite pictures of Coney Island now. I also edited my pictures using ViewNx2. Mostly I just adjusted using the d-lighting option. Some pictures I had to adjust the shadow and contrast too. But overall not much changes as the lighting was already ok. Just that some got a bit overexposed and some were a bit underexposed (still trying to become better at adjusting that).
That is it. I took all of them on manual mode so I had to adjust the settings everytime I took a different shot and it was tiring hahaha but I enjoyed it. I know they can be much better and some pictures came out ok but not the way I wanted them to. I guess that will just come with more practice and more understanding. I hope you liked them.
I'll be back again. See youuuu
Goodnightttt
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