Image application

Photography is my hobby and I remain the same enthusiastic whenever taking photos for tens of years. Certainly, I do not have much time as before.

For images on film, they cannot last for long. Thanks to digital imaging, I can preserve some of them in digital form. Now, every shot will be with the digital camera.

Recently I realize that it would be great to share these images with others. Portfolio is not the choice. It is expensive to print and requiring high price because the sale volume would not be high. Then I found the CafePress allowing members to have graphic or image for their products and I can earn a dollar or so for each item sold.

So I select a few images and open the http://www.cafepress.com/Goodlook.

Two digital photo lessons for one dollar

Sometimes ago, I decided that the best way to promote is to offer a very low price.

In fact, I have considered free. But free is something that lead to failure because participants might not care about what they should do.

I always say that the major concern is not about money, it is the time that matters most. If someone spends time to learn something but fails to improve, it may not be easy for he/she to get another similar course. In other words, that person would waste the time and the chance to learn that topic.

With the digital imaging technology, it is possible to operate digital photo courses online. It is easy to know that any such course requires viewing the photos for comment and advice. In film photography, this must be done face to face.

The LearnMyWay course that is promoted now is because I believe that this free choice of topic may be the best for this time. With film, it is certain that beginners need to learn everything. With digital camera and the new way of application, most may not need to go through everything because the functions of the camera have simplified many techniques.

Certainly, we can say that there are knowledge and technique other than camera operation to take good photos. That is true before and may not be accepted totally today.

What I can do and what participants can get with two lessons course? There are many topics that can be learned with two lessons. If one satisfies with his/her digital photos, there is no need to learn anything. If one wants better photos, he/she will know what is the problem like exposure, composition, subject expression etc. Then each of these would be a topic for improvement. Others include subject like portrait, child, scenic etc.

Of course, it depends on what is expected. If one looks for mastery instead of improvement, then it may take much more lessons instead of two. Although I have experience to train students from beginners to professional in three months with less then twenty lessons, yet it required full dedication and intense pressure to reach the goal. For the time being, I do not think such kind of training can be performed online.

It is a challenge for me to meet different requests, especially to design the course with two lessons only. But if this works fine for those who have interest to improve their digital photo technique, I shall share the same happiness.

Perfect exposure for Digital Photo

Ever since cameras became automatic, there is lots of different systems for metering and exposure.

It is good to have better metering systems in digital camera, especially there are choices for us to select.

In the old days, I had preferred to use handheld meter and used the gray card too. Thought this way is more accurate in general, yet no longer applicable for digital cameras because only films will have standard ISO and not for CCD/CMOS.

With metering or automatic exposure in digital camera, we can take digital photos much faster and the only problem is whether the choice of metering is suitable.

However, what we find great with one digital camera may not be so with another one. That is why some people would say certain models are better than the others. Of course, each camera may be good or bad in compare with each other.

I do not recommend to change camera unless someone needs a more versatile model to upgrade the technique. It is always better to know our camera and to get the best it can give instead of wasting our time and money because there is no perfect camera before and in the future.

If a model can be perfect, it would force all other models to be obsoleted and there would be one model of camera in the market. Throughout the history of photography, this has never happened.

Online photo courses

I teach photography for about thirty years.

In traditional photography, there were a lot of courses giving me different challenge.

A few years ago, when I felt that digital photography would take over film, I have stopped all traditional photo courses.

That was a transitional period of a few years, as digital photo was lack of good and affordable output. Finally when the manufacturers realized the mistake of working for digital output that was costly and incomparable to traditional photo papers, turned to build digital head for projection prints that could enjoy the quality and low cost of photographic papers.

It seemed that I could consider running digital photo courses again. However, there are many things that would not be solved easily. Furthermore, it seems that in the Internet age, it would be better to find a new way.

Therefore I started the planning for online courses.

How to know the progress of participants is the first and most important thing for me to consider. Therefore, I arrange the course by lesson and exercise.

Each participant will have a password to read a lesson. Each lesson comes with an exercise. Participant has to send the work to me for comment before having the next password for the next lesson. This way will allow me to know the progress and to be sure that participant has understood the topic or not.

The good thing is that participants can arrange their own time to read and work for the exercise. In these days, many of us may have to go for business trips etc. and any fixed schedule may not be suitable.

If they have problem, they can send questions by email. In compare with traditional courses, not all participants could ask questions clearly due to the limit of time. With online and in written form, participants have lots of time to write what they really need.

The bad thing is some participants may be bothered by other works or trips and will be difficult to continue with the lesson and exercise. Of course, time is in their hands.

In my experience, the problem is mostly due to personal. If one is keen to learn, one will be able to catch up even after a long delay.

However, I am still looking for a way so to help them about this problem.