Teaching yourself photography
Imagine, for a second, that you are a young person with a camera. There are other cameras in the world around you, and there are people who use those cameras, too, but nobody really knows what they are doing, nobody can teach you anything you don’t already know, and the only tool you have in the world is the internet. All hope is lost … Or is it?
I was recently speaking to Elisa Longhitano, who found herself in the same situation. As she was telling me about how she was teaching herself photography, I found myself smiling, and wishing I had access to the internet back when I was learning. Either way, Elisa’s story is a lovely reminder of the fact that all you need to do to learn the dark (well, technically, the perfectly gradient) art of photography, is to be curious, and just that little bit inventive…
“It was during my last year in high school”, Elisa explains “that I decided to surf the web to find useful information about photography. During the search I stumbled across, and ended up contacting, Walter Lo Cascio, an Italian architect who has a powerful passion for photography. We became friends, and he ended up giving me a lot of great advice”, she recalls. The most important piece of advice was to seek inspiration from the outside world. “look at those great pictures that are in books and on the web if you want to learn how to take a good picture”, he told her.
Like many others would, Elisa was worried if it was possible to learn how to take photos without active mentoring. “I thought it was impossible to learn how to take a good picture just looking at others’ works”, she recalls. “Walter would be relentless, however, and started showing me some of his and of others’ best pictures.”
Learning by recreating the work and techniques of others
“I started surfing through photography forums and reading the comments left for the pictures that fascinated me.”, she explains. “Reading the comments has been pretty useful to me because I have been able to learn from others’ mistakes and also because I’ve been able to find some interesting information about topics like ‘lens aperture’, ’shutter speed’, and other technical aspects of the shot.”
One of the photos which got Elisa inspired is the photo by Adolfo Fabbri, on the right. (Bigger version here) She started experimenting with the very dark, almost Frank Miller-esque low-key photography style, wanting to recreate the effect herself.
She started off trying to use partial back-lighting, arriving at something like this:
Which, despite being a pretty attractive photograph, was nowhere near what she was trying to accomplish. Further experimentation resulted in something which was a little bit more like it:
Which is, well, Elisa is pretty much straight on the money: It’s not a bad shot, but “It is just a meaningless underexposure!”.
Obviously, more experimentation would be necessary to really learn this new technique. She continued experimenting, and eventually happened upon a photo which turned out to be rather beautiful. The only problem? “I didn’t remember exactly what I did to reach this result!” - I’m sure most of us have experienced the same at one point or another…
As a physics student, the fact that she was unable to recreate the shot drove her spare: “I just couldn’t be satisfied because I kept thinking ‘In physics, too, an experiment makes sense only if you can repeat it’”. So she did what any good scientist would do: Set herself a target. “I must be able to repeat this kind of shot”.
So, the experiments continued.
“I started thinking about what I had to do, and I realized that beyond the shutter speed or the lens aperture, it was also important to care about where lights come from, and what is behind the subject”
The further experiments involved a lot of taking photos into the light (or ‘backlighting’, as it tends to be called), as you can see from the photos on the left. “I liked these pictures”, Elisa told me, but still wasn’t quite happy: “Even if they are both taken against the light there were too many details”.
So, Elisa continued experimenting systematically. By taking a photo at one shutter time, evaluating it carefully, and then dialing back the shutter time yet a little bit more, her vision of what she wanted to do with low-key photography started to take form.
“I did nothing special or original”, she claims with just a little bit too much humbleness for my liking: “I only tried to learn and take inspiration from other works, and with a lot of attempts and effort I think to have reached something decent.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be much of a story if it didn’t have a rather stunning end… And it does, in the form of a portrait of her boyfriend Emanuele, titled Against the Darkness:
Lessons learned
- Use the internet to find photographs you like. With services such as Flickr (in this case, try searching for Low Key and select ‘most interesting’ as the sort order) or DeviantArt (Same, but ‘Low Key’ and ‘Popular’), you can find tons of inspiration.
- Don’t let anyone tell you what is good or bad. Make up your own mind. Select 5 photos in the genre you are trying to learn something about, and then put them in order of best to worst. What makes the best photo ‘best’? How could you recreate this?
- First, re-create a photo. This is a purely technical exercise - worry about creativity later.
- Once you have the technical skills down pat (again, a website like DeviantArt can be incredibly useful in this respect - Tell people what you’re trying to do, ask for feed-back, sit back and be amazed), try to think out a photo where you can use the new technique you’ve learned.
- Keep trying a new technique for a while, create your own style based on the technique.
- When you go bored of it, or feel like you’re ready for another challenge… Well, go to step 1!
A huge thank-you to Elisa for contributing so strongly to this article. Check out more of her photos on Flickr!
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Insights, suggestions and comments
Your website has always been an inspiration to me. My high school only offers one photography course, and after that, you’re on your own. The majority of photographic knowledge I possess comes from your site. Thank you!
Thank you for your advice and the path to follow.
The article is easy to read and understand and offers a good perspective on going one step further
Fantastic article! Even if you are not teaching yourself photography from the start. Places like this and other great sites can provide new ideas for even professional photographers. There is always something new that you can learn or share with someone else.
Growing up in the ’70’s and 80’s I garnered much of my formal photography education reading. To this day self education is still one of the best tools in a photographers kit. Learn your equipment. Experiment with lighting. Never leave home without your camera.
The article provides excellent insight to develop a good photography foundation.
Thanks for good advice. Usually the basic recommendation sound like “Learn from the great”, but no one ever said how it can be done, so thanks for the recipe.
This is my learning method too… My problem is that I choose too many different inspirations at the same time :)
Eventually I change some technique from the photos I see, making it a little more original.
I too taught myself photography and am doing pretty well (I think so anyways). I don’t have a best friend helping me along the way (which after reading this I hope to change). I found all my inspiration from the internet, as Elisa did, but mainly with subject material. I read everything I could find that teaches, weather it be “Tips” or online free “courses”. I also look through as many competitions as I can looking at exposure times, times of day, apperature, lens etc. I have found them great while sitting at a computer but still find myself trying 4 or 5 other things for each shot (if able).
I have also found that starting with auto on the camera to let it set the apperature and shutter a good start and then “play” from there to create some great photos (sometimes, I like to refer to them as atrworks). The greatest thing I find with cyberspace is I can look through hundreds of photos, and see some and think to myself… “self, Ive seen something very similar, I should see what I can do with that.” This site has also inspired pictures as such.
Great post. but I do have one thing to add. you don’t have to be a young person LOL! I have been teaching myself photography, and though I am not OLD, I am not all that young anymore either :’)
I have been looking for a mentor, and will continue to do so, but will keep taking photos and reading helpful sites like yours and learning by trial and error.. thanks for sharing your knowledge
As a new photographer lesson #4 is a tough one for me. It is really hard to take negative feedback without a reason way which I have seen on DeviantArt. It would be OK if they pointed out something I did wrong and then give me advise to help me fix he problem. That is the only way you are going to get better is by making mistakes and learn from them.
I really like your advise. Thanks for the tips.
Teaching yourself is certainly fulfilling, yet can be lonely at times too. For photography, I’m in the same boat, armed with the internet, libraries, and the book store for all the material I can get my hands on. It would be nice to have a mentor to go out shooting with though — that’s for sure.
funny, i used to imaging the same thing as you do .after i read many many Photo, i fond ,as a photography,every one has his or her own way and the shoot so many Beautiful pictures.so i think nobody can really tell you how to do . but we can study their technology,and just take Photo like a child. i Collected all photography’s website from internet and magazine or school library. till now ,this is my only way to study from other photography. nice to meet you ,iam a chinese girl who is not good at english!
Very interesting article. I think I could use it to spice up things.
You know, I took a photography course in high school and a couple in college. That was all that was ever available to me. The only mentor I ever had was a guy who ran a local photo shop and gave me some darkroom tips. Don’t really think he was a mentor, though.
Experience and the internet is how one generally learns these days.
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