How to improve photography skills?

Five actions to improve the expressive force of photography

1, multi-shot

How much is more? When we used film in those years, we stipulated that we should have at least 200 films a year, that is, more than 7,000 films. It's digital now. I think that only by keeping at least 654.38+/kloc-0.0 million films a year can we keep fit, keep our hands hot, keep our eyes open and keep ourselves in constant progress or familiarity. ...

Taking more photos is not arbitrary, not to say that you are required to take whatever you see, nor is it mandatory to take 30 photos a day ... just purposefully ask you to take the machine several times a year.

Taking more shots doesn't mean buying more lenses, covering the full focal length and making good use of the lenses in your hand. ...

If you shoot too much, it's not a way to ask you to keep a running account, play a running account or LOMO or DC ...

How to shoot more is the right way for you. Maybe only you can answer. Anyway, the price of SLR is decreasing every year. Even if you only reduce the price by 1 000 yuan per year, you can only convert the annual cost of 1 000 pieces into 1 cent. For many people, this is still very expensive ... so now that you have invested in equipment, how much is it?

Step 2 read more books

The most important book in photography is ansel adams on Photography (or autobiography of ansel adams). The most important thing in this book is to read two points: the principle of partition exposure and "meditation"! Relatively speaking, meditation is more important. In fact, through meditation, you should consciously imagine what your movie is like! Not just recording! For example, sometimes you are just filming your children or your wife, so you should actually think, what do you want to show your children? Naive? Naive? Lovely little adults? Exquisite Or what, then what should the composition, light and children's state be like, and what should this film be like? Will people who see this film say according to my idea, "Oh, this baby is so naive! ..... "or" What a mature person ... "And so on, learning the law of meditation is basically the primary stage of learning photography and the most important progress, which must be broken through.

After reading this book, you may say that ghost ideas are always necessary for Adams' era, because they are all black and white movies. He can't see what his film actually looks like. He can only wait until he comes out of the darkroom. Then, we are all digital now. What's the point? I want to answer: it is still very important.

I also know that Mowgli once had a so-called "master" who refuted "meditation" according to Bresson's "decisive moment". What I want to say is that if you don't start with "meditation" or "foreseeing the result", basically, you will never grasp the "decisive moment". The two are not contradictory, but complementary.

As for partition exposure, you only need to know the basic theory, so that you can learn to deal with complex light sources and choose between bright and dark parts, compress partition parts and do post-processing in darkroom, which is basically not used by ordinary lovers now. ...

The other most important book is New Photos. I only read the first book and memorized the basic requirements. Ha ha ha, it's not that serious. In fact, this book is the best help to the technical foundation in the early stage of learning photography. You should always look at some elementary questions that people often ask, such as "Should I be +EV or -EV in this case" and "Should I use the spotlight side or the whole area to measure the light?"

3. Give yourself some theme homework.

The so-called homework theme is to give yourself some homework and shoot some small topics. The reason is: in fact, most of our daily shooting is without theme or "performance", and most of them are sketching or shooting at will. However, some special exercises can train our "expressiveness". For example, my former teacher asked us to shoot the Forbidden City once a year, which was called "fixed scene sketch exercise". You have to deal with different effects and theme expressions, such as: rain, snow, visitors to the Forbidden City, who is maintaining the Forbidden City, porches, etc. In fact, every city has this kind of place suitable for "fixed scene sketch practice", and I believe there is no need for big propositions. In this way, after three times at most, you will find that you have nothing to shoot, so you must find a new expression ... myself, the Forbidden City. I shot it four times in the Capital Museum ... This theme assignment for myself may not be so serious, such as: the growth of my neighbor and my baby in 200X, the road in front of my house ... and so on. Just do what you like. The key is to teach yourself how to organize the film and shoot the content and express a "theme" in a given scene!

At first, you may choose 40 movies in a shoot to form a homework project. If there are no movies, you will feel incomplete ... Later, you will find that as a project, 20 movies are enough, and you will never need 40 movies for what you want to show ... Later, you will find that you want to explain something or communicate a "subjective consciousness" with people who look at photos. 48660.6866868866 1 ..................................................................................................................................................................................

No matter whether you have successfully trained your "topic expression ability", even if you are not successful, you will always stay at the level of more than 20 pictures. Then, according to the ideas of different performances and different perspectives in the unified scene, it will also teach you the idea of "changing the world from another angle" in actual shooting, which is always beneficial!

4, this is very important, very important, that is: make a summary for yourself.

You have 10000 volumes a year, including some "small topics", which need to be summarized regularly. The summary method is as follows:

A, choose the films that you think you made very well, or I'll let you delete these 654.38+00000 films now, which ones you can't bear to delete. Whatever the reason, of course, if you delete the photo of your wife, you can save other films. I suggest you take a good look at the rest, give each film an unbearable reason and think about what situation you were in at that time.

B, basically, this action should be done once every three months or half a year, and then after a while, choose from them to see which ones are actually unnecessary and delete them ... Don't forget, you will re-shoot some themes regularly, so don't be afraid ... there will always be less than last time, hehe, then let's see why we left these films ... and then go back and forth until you really can't delete them. ...

C, the significance of this summary is that in addition to finding the reasons for your progress and consciously looking for opportunities for progress, you will also find many things that you don't usually notice, such as:

You will find that some focal segments are very easy for you to shoot! For example, for me, the most films I left behind are 35-50 focal lengths, and I'm not good at wider wide angles than 24, and I hardly need telephoto lenses above 85 ... Shit, I learned 12 photography before I found out. For me, I actually need a 35 and a 50.

You will find that you rarely use the aperture of 1.4, 1.8, 2.4 ... or you are always used to the maximum aperture (to be honest, most of Mowgli's movies either use too many apertures because the depth of field is too shallow, or simply ignore the depth of field and let the whole picture stay on a "plane"). At this time, you need to adjust your understanding of exposure. ...

You will find that the most movies you leave behind are portraits, documentaries, environmental portraits, or humanities ... and so on. Although you may say, "It's because I don't have a chance to go out and take pictures of my favorite culture and scenery, I don't really want to take pictures of my wife and children …", please believe me, this is your style. Don't deny that after you buy a camera, for shooting. " And left your best film so far! Then this is your direction! You like humanities now, but you don't have time to go out and shoot. Believe me, you won't have time in the future ... then who said it was more important to take pictures of things around you? That's the reason. At least, when you can't go out to shoot scenery and culture and aim at home, your wife and children have a good time with you. Take this as the direction ... of course, you can also hold a family meeting every year to announce it after discovering this situation.

You will find the most interesting thing. You will ask "What lens should I buy"? You also asked, "Should I buy 85 or 35"? You will also ask, "16- 105 is suitable for me or 18-250 is suitable for me"? Neither, because your photos have already told you where to form your main equipment lineup (which direction to invest) and which direction to shoot.

Step 5 watch more movies

Look at more photos! Read more excellent picture books, see how others shoot, imagine how you would shoot if you were here, read more excellent works, read more western paintings and other synaesthesia art categories ... accumulate more artistic opinions and enrich yourself. ...

Take me for example. My brother is clumsy and appreciates the "incomplete composition" similar to the "new school", but I have a similar "classical" or "academic" vision. There is no way, I just can't develop a "cutting-edge" style, hahaha, so I spent time, three years, bought more than N books and read them slowly as idle books. I'm still only interested in photography, and my talent is too low. Hahaha ... I like the "classical school". I'll give you a "master" I recently saw in China. You can look at the August 2007 issue of China Photography, which introduces Lv Nan in detail. There is a group of black and white seasons shot in Tibetan areas, which is awesome! ! !

If it is a fashion school, you should read more foreign fashion magazines. Note that the foreign and domestic fashion magazine may be VOGUE. In the past, domestic fashion cosmo films were also good, but recently they seem to be generalized ... This aspect mainly focuses on watching international fashion blockbusters, not to mention domestic photographers, and there are more amateurs. ............................................................................

About the so-called genre, it's just my humble opinion. I hope you can recommend some good movies and books to help us enrich our horizons.

In short, choose your favorite movies, watch more, build a photo wall (or a big wall of your favorite advertisements torn from pictorial) at home, and change it regularly to cultivate your eyes. Isn't the learning language environment the best? We also create an environment for your eyes ... and you can try to post your own movies, hehe, you will learn style, composition and light better. ...