This is Mr. Gupta ::
Mr. Gupta has been teaching for 30 years, and most of that includes photography education. He was recommended to me recently when I started searching for a photography instructor (yet another thing on my 55 List).
I buzzed a bunch of my friends who had also expressed interest in learning more about their cameras ... set a date and we started this last week.
I love taking photos. I love capturing moments and I really like being creative. I am happy with my camera, but not happy with my ability to manipulate it to do what I want/need it to do.
Since arriving in India, I tasked myself with only shooting in manual, to force the learning process. Shweew. Talk about frustrating! Often I see a GREAT shot ... and miss the moment because I'm fooling around with the dials and buttons on my camera.
In our first lesson, Mr. Gupta talked quite a bit about the essentials of photography :: shutter speed, aperture, exposure, etc. But what us girls REALLY wanted to do was go "out in the field." Get the cameras turned on, play with them and just take pictures.
We drove to the market by my house and armed with Mr. Gupta's instruction to take the "same shot three times" but with different settings, made our way around the market.
These were some of my first shots ... taken in "Aperture Priority" ::
note - YES, I know they suck. You don't need to worry about hurting my feelings when you look at them on your computer screen and wrinkle up your nose at the images. The colors didn't POP and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the bright light and over exposure to adjust.
You see, normally when I've got the camera in Manual, I end up with 10 shots of EACH same thing. I click, I play with the dials, I click, I adjust up, I click, I rotate down, and keep clicking away hoping that ONE of them will be exposed correctly and worth sharing with you all.
Since I was only controlling the aperture now (the part of the camera that works like your eye when it dilates - letting in various amounts of light) ... I was not able to manipulate nearly as many things.
At one point in our morning stroll through the market, this bunch of kiddos approached us. No need to ask permission for capturing their sweet smiles on film.
What could have been some GREAT photos were ruined by the fact that I don't know how to get my camera to respond correctly to what I see IN MY MIND when I point and depress that shutter button.
I turned in frustration to Mr. Gupta and said ... why do they all LOOK LIKE THIS??
He creased his forehead and said "give it here."
Within two seconds, had identified the problem. A setting on my camera was incorrect. He showed me what to do (and explained why it needed to be adjusted) and I shot again ::
MUCH better!!
I still have LOADS to learn, about composition, exposure, color vibrancy, shadows, the rule of thirds and more that I don't even KNOW I need to learn.
I am headed out now to get more photos. I'm excited about learning how to capture my experiences in this country ... and hopefully have the photos reflect what I see with my naked eye.
