Newbie Photographers

Being a newbie at anything can be a discomfort, because we know that we will make mistakes. Isn't it true that therein lies the learning? I used to read a lot of Stephen King books. One day I had the opportunity to read an interview that some lucky reporter got to have with him. One of the questions, and this is not a direct quote; but the question was something to the affect of this. "You make a lot of money writing books. What would you tell others who would like to make money from writing?". Mr. Kings answer was "Don't bother. You have to write because you love to write. You write because you have to.".

Recently, taking photos has become an interest for me. This is the best piece of advice I have come across for someone who would like to learn to take "good" photos. "Take lots of photos. Then take more photos. Then take lots more photos.". Good advice. After all, the learning is in the doing.

I have a Flickr photo account here. There are about 650 images that I have posted there. This is a small amount of the exposures I actually take in a month. The Gerbera daisy photos that are there are a good example. I may have 6 to 12 photos there, but those came from a group of around 120 to 140 that I actually took. Flickr is cool because one of the many things it can do is that it keeps track of how many "hits" or "views" an individual image gets from other people who are also taking images. Some get more "views" than others. Most get a few. Some get a lot. In general it comes down to this: some photos have more appeal than others. I am a consistent "few views" recipient. That is to say that 10 views is good for the images that I post. So 2 weeks ago when I posted an image, and in three days it gets over 350 views, 10 people make it a favourite and , I also get 12 comments about how cool it is, that makes you really take a hard look to see how the photo is built or structured. Anyway, what I am saying is that for a newbie like myself, it is a welcome surprise if that happens.

That's why this story caught my eye. Click here to see the report. Firstly the guy is a Canadian photographer. However he is not an accomplished photographer. He actually is a print reporter, a newspaper guy, a writer. Who happened to start carrying a camera around with him. To get to the point, this "newbie photographer", ended up winning a very prestigious international photo award for an image he took. Much to his surprise. I don't enter contests, but still it is encouraging to know that it can happen. Yes, you have to be there. Yes you have to have the camera and tripod. Maybe, if you've taken a lot of photos you'll take one that has a lot of "appeal". That's why I found this news story so interesting.