Photography skills.
Photography is just like music in many ways, if you want to master a musical instrument, there’s no easy way around it, you have to practice playing the thing, and it’s the same with a camera, you have to practice certain skills, both technical and compositional if you wish to progress beyond just taking holiday snaps.
But whereas a musical instrument requires the practice of mainly finger dexterity, visual composition requires a proficiency of mainly mental skills, especially because knowledge of all the different rules alone doesn’t guarantee any success, as the understanding of them is actually just the first step in a long process of mastering them, in fact, just as with the musical instrument, they cannot be practiced enough.
The primers here aren’t photography lessons as such, they are more an inspiration to go out with the camera and practice with the aim of developing a basic tool-kit of photographic skills, which can then be used to recognise the potential in any situation.
They were written mainly to compliment Berlin Photography Meetup skills practice events, but can be used independently.
The primers here therefore offer guidance and examples according to the various themes on a very basic level, but the key to success is to practice them, and not to just read them and imagine that understanding them on an intellectual level alone is a magic key to success, it isn’t, practice is.