As someone who has worked for myself for a decade, I have some irons in some fires; it’s simply a good practice to survive when you have to make your own money. As a result, I have certain tools at my disposal that help guide me when it comes to trending topics and questions. One such tool is Reply toSocrates.com, where you can see trending searches on any topic of your choice, in any country you choose. I’ve never used it for photography content, funny enough, but out of curiosity I checked out the most popular questions for this topic. I expected to see questions about the best cameras, lenses, and bags, as well as basics like “What is ISO?” and “What’s the best camera setting?” The latter is an all-time favorite of mine. It’s the equivalent of asking what the best medicine is!
This turns out not to be the case, but it’s not far off either. Various questions are familiar, such as “is photography a profession”, “when was photography invented” and “should photography be considered art”, but one The question made my throat choke as I uttered it.
‘Can I teach myself photography?’
Maybe it’s over-sensitivity on my part, but I like the question. I imagine that many trolls will give harsh reactions to it, but they forget that many people still haven’t grown up with Google in their pocket. In fact, the question reminds me of a gentleman I had a conversation similar to the one I would have with people asking this question. I will call him John for the sake of this short anecdote.
I’m friends with my son John, and when his son got married, I was asked if I would film the wedding because they wanted someone they could trust, and it wouldn’t be a regular wedding. often. John was in his 70s and his wife, at some point, told me he had just picked up a camera for the first time and loved it, but he didn’t know how to learn how. He’s not tech-savvy, he doesn’t use the internet, and the books seem outdated or lacking useful information. Finally, I talked to John about photography, and he asked a question similar to the one in Answer Socrates: he wanted to know if it was possible to educate himself.
Now, in the case of someone who’s not using the Internet and isn’t tech-savvy, that’s a bigger challenge, but it’s also not necessarily an obvious path for those living on the Internet. John has an information drought when it comes to photography, but digital natives suffer from information overload. Where do you get the best information? How do you know it’s reliable? Can you really achieve a reasonable standard on your own? Without the internet, you would need better books than John could find, or give up the “my own” section in favor of photography clubs or tutoring. Or, you find someone who can use the internet on your behalf.
But yes, you can totally teach yourself photography. Digital content is such a norm these days that you can become a top photographer entirely alone and with a combination of YouTube, sites like Fstoppers and payment instructions, you have everything you need. I want to reinforce all of the following by saying that you should shoot as much as possible and experiment while shooting. Don’t be afraid to miss out or fail – that’s the only way to make progress.
The play sequence for self-study photography should start from the ground up. The two pillars of getting started are the fundamentals of photography and understanding your camera. When it comes to the fundamentals of photography, there’s almost more to a resource than just a camera; learn about the exposure triangle and you’re almost done. In the early days, I printed it out and put it in my camera bag.
Understanding your own camera is also easy to do. Assuming you buy a used Sony a7 III (no link, it’s just a camera I’ve bought and used for years) you’ll need to learn how to set it up for use , which button does what, where to install. in the menu system etc. Sure, a tutorial is one way to go, but I recommend going to YouTube and typing in “Sony a7 III Beginner’s Guide” or the corresponding words. This will lead to great tutorials like this by Sidney Diongzon.
Once you can take a picture, you need to figure out what kind of image you want to create. Regardless of the genre that prompted you to try photography (mine is macro), I recommend you shoot anything and everything and see what you like. For example, if you want to try landscape photography, you can follow the same pattern as above and search YouTube for something like “Beginners guide to landscape photography” and find Find a popular video. I would recommend Mads Peter Iversen’s item on that first page.
Now, there is an additional point I would like to add here. Depending on how you define “alone”, you can speed up your progress. When I read “on my own,” I imagine that means no formal education or private tutoring. In that case, you should join photography communities or groups. From Reddit, to 500px, to the Discord server, there are countless photography groups that provide helpful feedback on images as well as inspiration from other photographers. For me, this is a sub-forum on an automotive website, but it helps me interact with photographers far from my station.
To move up from a strong foundation, you can choose to invest in your skills or go the potentially longer route of trial and error. The amount of free content is amazing and the quality of some of it is amazing, so it is possible to achieve a high standard without paying any fees, but the best guides have the tendency to pay fees. The Fstoppers . Instruction Library proven and I’ve watched many of them, so standardly speaking, no matter where I write this, a second opinion is welcome!
Final thoughts
To me and many others who’ve been in this space for a while, the question “can I teach myself to take pictures” seems to have a definite answer, but that’s clearly not the case. everyone. So, if you’re interested in photography and are wondering if you need formal training to master the craft: no, you don’t.
If you’re self-taught in photography, do share in the comments some tips for those who might be curious about dipping their toes in these waters, but are afraid to do it without direct instruction.
